Completed Short Film

Barbie Jail-Vimeo Settings HD from BDC on Vimeo.

Reflecting on our finished Short Film it wasn't as successful as we had hoped however the things that did work was the overall look of the short film. As the mise en scen used especially the costume, is really representive of what the characters character is like. As it's very feminine and plays on that whole idea of innocents being altered into something that is more sexual and playful and because of this and the characters girlieness, it makes the character seem more realistic. As in today's society many females are going to extra lengths to achieve the ideal body image which is either size zero or an imitation of Barbie's body which can be seen on TV programmes such as Snog Marry or Avoid. The locations used also add to the whole look and feel of our short film, especially the bedroom because of the colours. As they really create a typical girlie look where every things fun and pretty.

The voice over is also effective and helps create meaning to the short film. It really describes how the character lives and although it doesn't tell you in so many words just how she is feeling, the still images represent this. The quality of the voice over is really good as it's clear and the levels of it remain consistent because we recorded the sound separately. The only thing which could be improved is the length of the poem perhaps and extra verse could have been added which would have made our short film longer.

What works well about our piece are also the still images. As they really add to the messages and meaning behind the short film and is what makes the short film more engaging and interesting and because of the way our footage has been cut, it creates a faster pace making our piece flow better. The still images wouldn't have been as successful if there were less of them or if they were featured occasionally but because the use of them is consistent and there is a repetitive pattern it works well and really mashes and cuts everything up making the audience want to see the next set of images.

There are many things which could have been improved in our short film such as the length. Despite the definition of a short film being a film that is under 50 minutes long, ours is only 1 minute which I feel is far to quick. More shots of what the character does after getting ready should have been used and fades to connote that she does nothing with her spare time which I don't really feel was emphasised enough. Instead we used one fade which was very much out of place as there were know other fades used which made the use of it pointless.

Another aspect of our short film that could have been improved was the last set of still images as they are far to quick compared to the other images which doesn't keep the speed of them consistent and doesn't really give the audience a chance to view them properly. What we should have done was measured up the length of them and apply the same size to all the still images which would have meant they would have been all equal in size.

The titles too could also have been improved as they quite standard. We should have been experimented with them to really show our creativity. Perhaps a brighter colour could have been used and a font that was more representative of our piece.

When editing our short film we didn't really experiment with the use of different effects which I feel was one of our downfalls. As there is nothing that really wows the audience. Also we didn't experiment with lighting. I feel the lighting in the bathroom scene is to bright and could have been toned down whilst the the contrast turned up to make it look more clinical.

Overall our final piece follows the codes and conventions of short film. As we didn't have a big budget which means there was less added pressure to appeal to a mainstream audience and meant that we could be more creative and not follow the norm. It also meant that we could create our own unique style and mash everything up and make it look random and really make the audience search for the meaning behind our short film. We really tried to build up in the space of a minute, the day in the life of the character and didnt leave the ending open as we really wanted the audience to get the concept of our short film within in this short space of time. From my understanding of short film. A short film could be boring to some but as long as there is a meaning to it, it can still be effective which I hope our piece does in someway.