Critical Reflection for Short Film

 

• How do your products represent social groups or issues?

 

When beginning this project, we knew that we wanted our short film to be somewhat relatable and definitely realistic. Since we all created horror films in AS level, we wanted to try a new genre which ultimately came to the idea of making a drama. In school, we are taught about mental health and all the ways students could be struggling in silence. We wanted this to be a visual representation of this not only to educate, but to take a more creative approach to our film. By portraying the lives many live today, we have given those who choose not to speak up their health the opportunity to share freely with those who have realized the severity of these circumstances. The first topic tackled in our movie is unexpected teen pregnancy. Although it could be positive to some, most aren’t prepared and are often scared when they find out they are expecting at such a young age. The second topic is eating disorders and body dysmorphia. We chose to represent this issue because of how many people deal with it without knowing or telling anyone. People consider it embarrassing to tell someone they have an eating disorder and when asked about it, it’s usually denied. This occurs in many lives today as social media sets a standard for what is beautiful whether it’s super skinny and fit or looking like an “hourglass”. Eating disorders do enough damage themselves to your body, but we wanted to represent someone that had been going through it for a while and is now giving up. Lastly, we created a character with fighting parents. Although this issue is not directly created by the one suffering, violence in a household can often make one feel like it is their fault. Our movies represents these issues for an audience that could possibly be completely oblivious.

 

• How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

 

Creating this project came with the task of promoting our short film. One of the first platforms we created was a website. With this, we could post updates, reviews, and link our social media accounts with ease. After creating this website, we made accounts on social media most used by society today. We made pages on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook under the name of our short film.  Planning this out before filming allowed us to plan posts and updates for promotion. This aspect of branding fit into the category of planning and pre-production for our short film. When beginning to film, we made sure to film updates (in between takes) to later share with followers of our short film. The physical filming portion was important not only because it’s a physical depiction of the movie, but it allowed for these updates to be created for branding of the movie. After filming, we went on to create our postcard. This would be a physical advertisement for the film with showtimes and our social media usernames printed on it. We also edited in post-production, which opened a new opportunity for promotion and branding of our short film. We found that we had tons of outtakes which could make for great entertainment for audiences following our production progress. Our website, social accounts, and postcard have allowed us to share our process, but without the processes of pre-production, filming, and post-production, we wouldn’t have discovered the small details in promoting our movie.

 

• How do your products engage with the audience?

 

As stated before, our film tackles the issues of teen pregnancy, eating disorders, and violence in the household. It is created to inform audiences of what may be happening to those close to them without them knowing and shows people with these issues how it can affect them if kept to themselves. The audience experiences the emotions of the characters through different camera angles and shots. For example, we used close-ups to express the emotion on the faces of the actresses. The audience is able to live in the scene created and possibly relate. We also created social media to allow the audience an inside look at our filming process. This was a part of our branding process and could be used by the audience to get updates on what we were working on. Our website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all allow information to be shared from us to our audience. This way, the audience feels like they’re part of the process, encouraging them to see the film when it’s released. Lastly, our postcard allows for showtimes and social media names to be shared to the audience. This also gives the audience the opportunity to plan to see the movie for themselves. The physical film, the media resources, and postcard all allow the audience to feel in touch with the process, outcome, and story created for this short film.

 

• How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

 

When beginning our project, my group and I knew that we wanted to create a drama short film. In AS level, we all made the first two minutes of a horror film, so we decided we wanted to explore another genre as well as go through the process of creating a full-length short film. Previously, we didn’t have to learn the aspects of branding, however this year it was important to be educated on every detail when it comes to creating a film. Before beginning to brand, we did some genre research. When researching the genre of drama, we often found that the movie would have a light-hearted or bitter-sweet message. For example, the movie Clouds follows the final months of a teen dealing with cancer through song. The movie is mostly positive, even though the main character faces his uncontrollable death. However, many times drama movies can be ominous or convey a negative emotion. We decided to go this route, keeping the emotional aspect of a drama film. We then transitioned into creating our social media platforms. Before doing this, we looked at examples from films that were already created. In doing this, we were able to set up our accounts like professionals. We used this knowledge we had gained to create our platforms, making sure to include things such as a description of our short film. In the end, our film and branding strategies both used and challenged conventions to follow certain guidelines, but add our own creativity and uniqueness to it. 

Short Film Package

 My Short Film Package

Perception

Link to short film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foJOfSvOAX0&t=1s

Link to website: https://perceptiontheshort.wixsite.com/mysite

Social Media Blog: Posts and Videos

 Today I took the opportunity to post a video on our FaceBook and YouTube accounts. When we first created our social media, I was in charge of creating these two accounts. I would also be in charge of posting on these accounts while my other group members focused on our other accounts. Savanna is in charge of updating our website and Sophia takes care of our Instagram and Twitter. Since I was managing FaceBook and YouTube, I thought it would be more fitting to post videos over photos for the time being. This way, I could post the same content so a broader audience could view it. I managed to find a video from our last day of filming right after we filmed our last scene. We all sat together and yelled "that's a wrap" to the camera. I first posted this on the YouTube account, which took about five minutes. The challenge was with the FaceBook account. I made the account on my laptop so that's where I went to post. However, every time I tried to insert the video, it wouldn't upload. After a few tries, I went online on my phone to post it. This seemed like it was going to work, but when I tried it only allowed pictures. Finally, I decided to download the FaceBook app on my phone. After logging in, it only took about two minutes to post.  As we get closer to posting our movie in a blog, it's important to have some kinda of promotion for it. When we share our movie, our website with all of our links will be shared as well. I can't believe we've already finished our short film. It's definitely a huge accomplishment during this pandemic.

Music and Title Blog: Our Choices

 As stated in a previous blog, we had decided on how we wanted our score to sound. We wanted it to build until the end with a pause in the middle. After going through a lot of songs, we finally found what we were going to use. We decided on two songs to show the lightened mood in the beginning and the dramatic turn it takes. Both songs we decided on are from YouTube. They are also royalty-free so they can be used without permission from the artist. The beginning song is called "Pool Party" and has no artist. Our dramatic song is titled "Serious Documentary" and the artist is not stated as well. However, it is published by JMFX. The first song is used for around 20 seconds while the second song is used for the remainder of the movie. 

As for titles, I previously mentioned that we wanted to keep it simple and light to contrast with what was going on in the background. The titles would be pretty but evoke an ominous emotion for the audience. This is because of the simple titles with the dramatic music. We decided to draw inspiration from our website to make our titles. They are all white and the font is Courier New. I also changed it so that it would be bold, but not Courier New Bold. We also put titles on different parts of the screen in order to not distract the audience from what is happening in the movie. They are also in different places so that the wouldn't blend into the background of the film. The titles fit into the first two minutes of the movie. This is right when the audience starts to watch Grace's life after already going through Salem and Chloe. 

First Draft and Reflecting: Finishing up Our Movie!

We've completed our first draft of our short film! This process has been so much fun and working with these teammates has been amazing. Collaborating with them has been a breeze from agreeing on our screenplay to making storyboards together. I would definitely say that this was the most fun I've had creating media for this class. Now that we have finished our first draft, all we have to do is go back and fix details that we may have missed the first time. I believe we are also going to trade films with another group to critique one another. At the beginning of this project, there was so much uncertainty when it came to how much time we had to create this film. However,  being able to share ideas and work fluidly has been a huge advantage. Communication was everything when it came to creating this. As for our first draft, we still aren't quite sure about our music choices. We've been testing different scores out to see which best fit our theme, however none have been perfect yet. We will continue to work on this over the next week and hopefully we'll be able to figure it out. As of right now, our titles are white. We are not sure if they will stay this way because of some of the background colors. We have also been experimenting with different fonts and ways for the titles to appear. Overall, we still have a lot of work to do for our editing. We also need to post on our social medias. We weren't sure how much to post, so we recorded a few videos in between filming, editing, etc. I'm hoping that our audience will enjoy funny outtakes along with these behind the scenes clips. I can't wait till we are officially finished!

Editing Blog: Adding Music and Titles

We have continued to edit through the holiday break. It took a couple days to get the clips blended, but we finally got through it all. After watching the movie all the way through, we moved on to titles and music. Both of these details are crucial when trying to show the audience emotion. Since we hadn't done any research on titles for this movie, we decided to visit resources from last year. The two websites we used were watchthetitles.com and artofthetitle.com. We also used our knowledge of movies we've seen and/or analyzed in the past. The genre of our movie is drama, so we knew we wouldn't be using any crazy titles. For example, a red title with dripping blood wouldn't be considered for our movie. Since our movie is more of an emotional or sad movie, we thought about having a title that was appealing, but may be ominous. Examples of these types of movies include Seven Pounds and Terms of Endearment. Next, we moved onto the music. We previously decided that we wanted dramatic, instrumental music to play in the background of the movie. This would contribute to the building suspense of the film. We explained that there would be two pauses in music. One would be during an action match in the middle and at the end when two of the characters are trying to get the other on the floor. For right now, we found some royalty free music that fits our theme. One of the songs we found was "Pinhole" by Lance Conrad. This one was light and it built, however it may be too light-hearted for this melancholy film. We are still working on music, but are finished for now!

Editing Blog: Blending the Clips as One

My group decided that it was time to begin editing. In the previous blog, we imported our videos into iMovie. We then organized them in chronological order. Instead of keeping them in the small import section, we dragged them to where the clips are merged. At the end of this process, we had all of our uncut clips lined up next to one another. We watched through it once before continuing. When we were sure that the shots were in place, we each went through and cropped each video to make sure that the movie wouldn't be choppy. We took turns actually editing, but all pitched in. For example, while Savanna was editing, Sophia and I were making sure we followed what was written down in the storyboard. Our job was to communicate as a team to complete this together. After Savanna, I edited. My main goal for this year was to try and make the shots have smoother transitions. My teammates were really helpful with this and we were able to learn from one another. Instead of editing our own scenes, we decided it would be better to do others. This way we could give feedback and learn from our mistakes as the director behind the camera. For example, I edited some of Savanna's scenes and some of Sophia's scenes. Working as a team to edit was definitely a change. Last year, I did most of the editing which was really difficult. I didn't know how the software worked and had to constantly edit random things in my free time. However, due to the extra collaboration and awareness of the program, I feel more confident with the editing process. 

Editing Blog: Importing and Organizing

 After finishing up with the filming process, we moved on to editing. Since we recorded on one device, we decided to share the videos with one another. This is because we wanted to each be able to individually go through the videos, as well as together. We thought about sending the messages through text or email, however there were too many to do so. The easiest option would be to create an iCloud photo album or store it in Google Drive. We decided to use iCloud because we would be editing on iMovie. At first the album wasn't working because of the quantity of videos, however after adjusting settings on our devices, we managed to share the videos between the three of us. Each of us individually went through the videos to make sure we had all of the footage. We also made sure to go through them to avoid mistakes that wouldn't be seen until we began filming. We wanted to keep our filming days to a minimum to avoid too much contact during the current pandemic. Thankfully, we were able to get good shots of all of our scenes. Afterward, it was time to import the videos to iMovie. Before doing this, we had to create folders on each of our computers to move the videos out of the iCloud album. This way, the videos could be imported with the press of a button. When we went to iMovie and imported the videos, they downloaded in the order we filmed them. Since we filmed by character, we had to reorganize the videos. The outdoor videos also had to be fit at the beginning and end. The majority of the scenes were in order though because the camera is supposed to follow one girl at a time. We had to find where we wanted action matches and put those videos next to one another. This took some time but made editing so much easier!

Filming Blog: Salem's Scenes

The last scenes we needed to film were for Salem. Salem is played by my group mate Sophia. The character struggles with an unplanned teen pregnancy in the short film. This time, it would be Savanna and I collaborating on the directing and filming. I believe Salem had the least amount of individual scenes in comparison to me or Savanna. As a result, we shot these scenes fairly quick. We started with filming Sophia walk into the house. Just like when we filmed the scenes for the character Grace, we made sure to film at another angle so that it didn't look like we were entering the same house. A series of tracking shots and wide shots were used to show Salem (Sophia) enter her home. We began filming her scenes in the bedroom after getting inside. After filming, we realized that we were missing a prop for her scenes. We ended up having to go out to a local store to buy a pregnancy test for her scenes. However, this took longer than expected. When we arrived at the store, there was only one cashier and a long line. We decided it would be best to find another store instead of waiting 20 minutes. We didn't waste time and quickly arrived at the next store and bought the pregnancy test. As soon as we arrived back at the house, we began filming in the bedroom again. We used a series of wide shots, over the shoulder, and POV shots to film in the room before changing locations. We also made sure to film the bird's eye shot like the other two characters. In the bathroom, we used over the shoulder shots and close-ups to convey her emotions when learning the results of the pregnancy.

Filming Blog: Grace's Scenes

 After filming Chloe's scenes, we proceeded to film Grace's scenes. Grace is played by my teammate Savanna, so Sophia and I had to collaborate on the directing and videography. Savanna focused on her part in the screenplay and made sure to take direction, as well as chime in. We all had a hand in directing and acting and will collaborate on editing as well. Grace struggles with arguing parents so we didn't film too many scenes outside of her bedroom. Before we got there, we filmed her walking into the house. We made sure to film this at a separate angle than the ones for me so that it would seem like we were in different houses. Savanna entered through a side door instead of the garage door like me. We then filmed the quick seconds that she's in the hallways of her house. The objective was to make it look like she was sneaking around her parents to avoid their bickering. We used tracking shots and medium close-ups to show her sneaking through the living room before going to her room. We then see a long shot of Grace in her room, closing the door, and sitting on the floor. While in the bedroom, we continued to follow Grace though her journey trying to tune out her parents. We used close-ups and medium close-ups to show the expression on her face as she goes through the motions. In the scene, she closes the door and falls to the ground crying, the shot is filmed from somewhat of a high angle. Another scene shows her in a similar position, but on her bed (close-up). Then, we used the bird's eye shot to mimic the one Chloe did. Along with this, we showed her grabbing the headphones and placing them in her ears. Instead of having bathroom scenes like Chloe, Grace turns to another way of coping. We filmed a wide shot of her getting into bed and falling asleep.

Filming Blog: Chloe's Scenes

Our next step in filming was to film the scenes for each individual girl. Since the film follows the girls home after their outing at the park, we continued to film outdoors, but this time we were outside of my teammate's house. We decided to start with my scenes first (I play the role of Chloe). We started by filming me walking into the house. This portion was filled with tracking shots and medium close-ups to show my facial expressions and body language. It was also to show the atmosphere around me so that the audience knew where I was in the house. Savanna and Sophia (my group) collaborated on directing and setting the scene while I prepared props and went over the screenplay. Our movie is mostly silent, so I don't have any lines once I get to the house. However, I had to remember where I was going and what I was doing in each scene. After walking inside, we filmed scenes of me in the kitchen. My character struggles with body image issues and goes to eat in the kitchen. We filmed my close-ups of me taking food out of the fridge and placing it in the microwave. The last scene is a medium close-up of me looking at the food before getting up and walking away. The next scenes were filmed in a bedroom. We used tracking shots, medium close-ups, and a bird's eye view angle to give the audience an idea of the setting as the story continues. We also used a long shot to show Chloe looking into the mirror, examining her body.  Included in the bedroom scenes, were scenes in the bathroom. Here, extreme close-ups, low angles, point of view shots, and close-ups were used. The bathroom is the most intense setting in Chloe's scenes. The addition of extreme close-ups was for the audience to realize what was going on in Chloe's head. 

Filming Blog: At the Park

 Yesterday, my teammates and I met up for our first day of filming. Before seeing each other, we made sure to bring masks and go over CDC guidelines in regards to the pandemic. We met at Sophia's home and then decided to a nearby park to film the first half of out outdoor scenes. Before arriving at the park, we made sure to pack towels to sit on and went to a nearby restaurant to get food so it looked like we were there for a picnic. While filming, there was a children's baseball game going on, which made the parking lot fairly crowded. However, when arriving to our location in the park, there wasn't as many people as it seemed. We did have to pause a few times to allow people to walk by or cheer for the kids, but it wasn't a problem. We started by filming scenes of us having fun for extra footage and to start the movie off at a high note. Then we filmed the characters saying goodbye to each other, followed by their tracking shots going in different directions. We then cleaned up and headed to our next location. Our movie begins and ends outdoors. Our next location was a smaller park in Sophia's neighborhood. My teammates had to change clothes for this shot because some time would have passed in the movie. Then, I filmed them individually walking towards each other (medium close-up). We tried filming a conversation between the two characters, but there was some noise going on in the back from animals outside. We ended up having to film these scenes a few times and even took a break to film a video for our film social media. Finally, we were able to get the scenes done before heading back to the house. Then, we went through the footage to make sure we were done for the day. Today in class, we created a photo album to share the videos between on another. In doing this, we all have the videos available to edit together.

A Small Setback in Filming

 Over the past week, my group and I had planned to begin filming our short film. However, we had a small delay if plans. As American students, we had November 23rd to 27th to take a break from school and celebrate Thanksgiving with family. This break was also an opportunity to have some free time away from schoolwork. A few days prior to the break, I was told that I needed to make a trip to Colorado to visit my grandmother and deal with a family loss. I left before break and continued my virtual learning from Colorado. Although it was nice to visit my family, there was still the matter of filming. We needed to decide how filming would work with me being in another state. It wouldn't be a good idea for me to film by myself at my grandmother's house because if we needed to do re-shoots, I wouldn't be in the same setting. As a group, we decided it would be best to hold off on filming and do it after the break. This way we would be able to have consistent settings. Not only would the setting be different, but we wouldn't be able to collaboratively film together. This element was extremely important to us because all of our ideas went into making this film and it would only make sense if we all helped with directing, videography, etc. Branching off of one another's ideas is exactly how we created our story and completed our process up to this point. With that being said, my team and I are preparing to begin filming as soon as possible. Tomorrow is already the start of December and we planned on completing this  project around January. We have gathered materials and hope to start in the coming week. We have followed CDC guidelines and have tested negative and/or quarantined for 2 weeks. We plan on checking temperature before coming in contact with each other and are keeping masks, sanitizer, and wipes with us. All three of us have been so excited about this movie and it's finally time to begin!

Music Choice for our Short Film

Music is extremely important when it comes to conveying the mood and tone of a specific scene or entire film. The score of a film can be a symbol for many years to come. Audiences still hum the tune of the work of John Williams in Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, etc. Scores help to establish a movie or even a movie franchise because of how recognizable they are. John Williams' scores have shaped generations by allowing a way for the audience to connect and engage in the movie and with others.  Often times, directors use music to make the audience feel something during a scene that may not be emotional enough with words. For example, in a horror film, intense music may be used to identify that there is a threat. In an action film, the score would have a quick tempo and likely be loud.

In the case of our film, we wanted to find music that would be dramatic. We don't have much dialogue so we needed a way to portray emotion besides our expressions. In the beginning of our film, after the girls part ways, the music would be emotional but would be slower and quieter. As the film progresses, the music will build until the moment when the girls put their headphones in. As each girl listens to their music, the movie will be silent. When they remove their headphones, the music will return to the tempo it was before and start to build again. Through each scene, the music will become more intense until Grace and Salem meet up at the end. The music will then be softer, allowing the audience to hear the dialogue. When Chloe's phone is ringing at the end, the music will no longer be playing. 

As a team, we decided to use non-copyright music in the score of our film. This is because we didn't feel that we needed an exact piece by a specific artist for the film. Instead of researching and emailing artists about copyright, we thought it would give us more options if we explored non-copyright music.

Creating our Media Platforms

The next step in preparing for our short film was to create media for marketing. In doing this, we will be able to share extra details that may not be included in the movie. My group and I needed to create a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. We also set up a website to add the links to all of these platforms. We decided it would be best if one person created the website, and the other two people each made two social medias. I was in charge of creating the YouTube and Facebook accounts for the film. Before we could create our accounts, we decided to come up with a title that would be the usernames for everything. Currently, the title of our movie is Perception. We decided on this because perception means the state of being aware or becoming aware of something. The entire movie the audience is aware of the character's problems but they don't become aware till the end of the film (see storyboard). It's seems ironic that the title is more about the audience than the character's.

I started with creating a gmail for the movie because it would be needed to create a YouTube account. After that, it was simple to set up the account and make it live. The Facebook was a bit more difficult because of the username. Facebook does't allow its users to create an account with words that aren't a name. Even after trying to create an account and change the name, Facebook wouldn't budge. Instead of creating an account for the movie, I had to create a personal account for my group and then create a page for the movie. Then I had to add few details such as what the page is for. Lastly, I was able to activate the page and send the link to a teammate to add to our website. We can't wait to post some behind the scenes!

Storyboard Blog: Visualizing our Short Film

Storyboarding was the next part in getting our short film planned. Storyboarding is very important because of its visualization. My group mates and I made sure to talk about our vision as a whole for the film before making our storyboard. We split the drawings up for different scenes to make sure each one of us got the chance to be creative. Although drawing is very clearly not our strong suit, we tried our best to share our vision. Storyboarding will save us a lot of time in the long run because it helps plan out our entire film. Although this process can be long, carefully planning out each scene is very necessary. The storyboard is also a good way to see our film fully through before we start filming. The pictures help us see what each scene will hopefully look like. The sentences below each box are also very useful because they tell anyone reading what kind of shot and camera movements each scene will have. 

      This step is also useful because no time will be wasted on the actual day of filming. Storyboarding gives everyone in our group and out of our group a clear idea of what shots we want. An advantage of storyboarding is that we can find out what ideas we may have had that would work and what may not work. For example, we can try out multiple ideas or shots using the story boards and then see what we like best. Another advantage of this is that it can be easily changed depending on any new ideas we may have. Storyboards allow us to work out problems at an early stage before actual production takes place. This storyboard also helped give us an overview of the timing and rhythm of our short film. I think this part of planning is really tedious yet beneficial. Storyboarding has many advantages and will help our film in the long run! We are very excited to continue this project.

Planning Blog: Preparing for our Short Film

 1. Location- We will be filming at four different settings throughout the short film. The first setting is at a park. This is where the opening scene takes place, all the characters are introduced here. The next three settings are at each of the character's homes. There are three characters, Grace, Salem, and Chloe. These locations will be used to get an insight into each of the girls' personal lives. This location is actually huge for the plot of our story since each home is filled with the character's individual issues they face. 

2. Health and Safety- COVID-19 is still a problem so we will need to take extra safety precautions to ensure everyone is safe. We will do this by social distancing when we are at the park and wearing mask anytime we are not filming. As for the scenes that take place in homes, we will all quarantine on our own so there is no risk of us having the virus and transmitting it to each other. A parent will also be around incase of any sort of emergency.

3. Props: We will need a pregnancy test, a plate of food, dietician pills and headphones for each of the girls.

4. Costumes- When we are filming at the park, we will be dressed casually in jeans/shorts and a t-shirt. These costumes will remain the same for each of the characters throughout the short film.

5. Schedule:

November 9- November 13, 2020

Planning/Storyboarding

November 23rd, 2020

Filming

11:30 am- All of us will meet up at the park. We will shoot there from 11:30 am to around 12:30 pm.

12:30 pm- We will make our way to Sophia's home to film the scenes taking place in homes.

1:00 pm to 2:00 pm- We will go over all of the scenes for Salem's character and film them.

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm - We will go over all of the scenes for Chloe's character and film them.

3:45 pm to 4:45pm - Film all of Grace's scenes and go over them.

November 27th- December 4th, 2020

Edit short film

December 5th, 2020: Re-film

December 6th, 2020: Re-edit

Short Film vs. Feature Length Film

 Although Shane Acker worked on both the short film and the feature film, there are many things that had to be added or changed in order for the short film to be stretched into the almost 90 minute movie. The storyline needed to remain as similar as possible with extra details in the longer film. The two plots I came up with are as follows.

Short film: 9, the rag doll, figures out that a monster has been stealing the souls of others like him. He sees this when the souls appear out of the artifact he receives from 5. 9 knows he needs to confront the monster instead of run away.

Feature film:When 2 is taken by the post-apocalyptic "beast", 9 is determined to save him with the help of the other rag dolls he meets on his journey. On this adventure, he and his partners learn new secrets of what caused the ending of humanity and how they can save it.

Along with the storyline, there were a few other differences between the two films. Unlike the short film, the feature film used a narrator at the beginning and dialogue throughout the rest of the movie. In the short film, the audience depends on the expressions of the characters to tell the story, but the narrator sets the scene and the rag dolls continue within the story. The feature film also includes multiple characters. The short film follows 9, 5, and the beast while the feature film includes 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, the beasts created by the brain, the brain, and the scientist who narrates the story. While both films feature a backstory, the short film goes back to when 5 dies and 9 is left alone while the feature film backstory is about how humanity ended.

Whereas the two films differed in some areas, they had to have similarities for the audience to recognize that the feature film is adapted from the short film. The lighting remains the same in both. The dark, eerie mood sets the scene for the post-apocalyptic world (same setting in both movies). The shots are also very similar (close ups and pan movements) to show the expression on the rag dolls' faces and the movements they are making. Both films also use diegetic sound to build a moment. For example, when the beast is coming, the audience can hear the sound of metal crashing.

Research 9: The Feature Film

 After much success at film festivals, Shane Acker had the opportunity to turn his short film into a feature film with the help of producers (Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, Dana Ginsberg, and Jim Lemley) and Focus Features. The story begins with a narrator talking while a human is creating 9. When 9 comes to life, he doesn't speak and the audience only hears diegetic sound (footsteps, metal crashing).The audience is also able to hear the beast before it shows up (metal scratching and growling). Closeups and extreme close ups are used to show the expression in his eyes before (and when) he's able to talk. Close ups were also used to show the detail the human put into creating 9. During the rest of the film, these close ups and diegetic sound remain, however there is dialogue. When 9 meets 2 (another rag doll) he finds a voice box from a doll and gives it to 9 so he can also speak. As well as close ups, the film features many establishing shots, point of view shots, and pans. The establishing shots are used to show the audience the setting which switches from the outside into different hidings inhabited by the rag dolls or the antagonist. The pov shots were used to see the world from the perspective of the rag dolls. This way, the audience feels just as small as them. The pan movements were used to raise the level of tension by moving the camera fast from character to character or setting. The music also contributed to the emotions in the moment. In the beginning, it was very ominous and somewhat slow, but when the characters are running it intensified. The music also lightened when the characters were content or when 9 met 3 and 4. The dark lighting also makes the post-apocalyptic setting recognizable.

The introduction of 2 starts the slow introduction of the ret of the rag dolls (1-8) and all of their personalities. Two common traits in them are curiosity or kindness. These traits are seen in 9 , 2, 3, 4, and 5. Others have bravery, intelligence or are even timid or controlling. The characters' traits develop and change as they face new challenges.

Plot: When 2 is taken by the post-apocalyptic "beast", 9 is determined to save him with the help of the other rag dolls he meets on his journey. On this adventure, he and his partners learn new secrets of what caused the ending of humanity and how they can save it.

Research 9: The Short

The short film 9 was created by a student at UCLA named Shane Acker in 2005. From watching the film, the story is focused around a rag doll named 9. The story starts in the present, with 9 scavenging and then studying an artifact in his hand. The audience is also introduced to some type of monster in search of something or someone. Then, the story shifts back to 9 and the artifact. The next few scenes are a flashback of when 9 was first given the artifact (when 5, another rag doll, risked his life to save 9). The audience, as well as 9, learns that the glowing of the artifact signals that the monster is close and that it steals the souls of the rag dolls. The overall plot of this short film is clear after the flashback ends and 9 has to face the monster for the first time on his own. 

Plot: 9, the rag doll, figures out that a monster has been stealing the souls of others like him. He sees this when the souls appear out of the artifact he receives from 5. 9 knows he needs to confront the monster instead of run away. 

The film created/director uses different camera angles and movements along with editing, sound, lighting, music, and setting to convey the tone of the film. Acker often uses close ups and extreme close ups to show the emotions in the eyes of the rag dolls. There is no dialogue so this is one of the ways the audience knows what the characters are feeling. To go along with this, the creator uses a lot of eye line matches and shot reverse shots to see the rag dolls' eyes and the artifact or their surroundings. The setting seems to be a post-apocalyptic world where only the rag dolls and the monster exist. The lighting is dark and the surroundings look like ruins of a possible city. The music also gives the audience feeling. In the beginning, it's slow and ominous but when the monster is around, it is more fast-paced. Acker also uses diegetic sounds to emphasize the silence when it comes to dialogue. Some of these sounds include shuffling of feet and metal crashing or squeaking.