Bear and Liam were best friends and done everything together now Harry has been pushed aside for Liam is no experiencing with teenage lifestyle and doesn't want to be associated with cuddly toys.
The film follows the story of Harry who wants Liam to understand how he feels and explains everything he's been through. The film is a light hearted comedy with serious elements underlining some issues of loneliness and rejection, it also explores the life of a teenage boy through the eyes of someone else.
How does the final version of your short film differ from the original idea you had and why? Synopsis, characters, location, props, costume, script. What stayed the same?
We first decided to make a film about the life of a teddy, how it feels to be in the background of someones life it was meant to reflect a light hearted comedy about a tale of best-friends a boy and his bear. However after much planning and decision to make a spilt within our group causing one member to leave we thought it would be best if we both made the same film but choose a different genre for each.
Our film depicts a sad version of a boy and his bear, the struggle to remain friends when age and social activities comes in between them. At first we wanted to show both characters because we felt it would be more beneficial for the audience to see who the teddy is talking about, but after shooting the first set of pictures without a actor because he couldn't make it we decided not using a person would add mystery to who he is and make the story a puzzle.
We initially picked a dark brown teddy bear to use in the film but after some test shots discovered that he didn't quite fit with the photographs and he was too small to make any impact on the photographs. So we searched around until we found the final teddy, we took test shots of them all and then discussed which on we believed was better. The story board we created came in very useful we used to it exactly to what it is and it helped us a lot, so there was no change in the shot list or photographs we wanted to take.
The only difficulty we had was when we got to the edit suite and realised we didn't take enough pictures they slowed us a down a lot and we started to give up and have little faith in the project, it was at this point we didn't realise how many pictures we needed to take to make a 2-5 minute film.
We decided to sit down and brainstorm what photos we still needed so we didn't waste time taking pictures we knew weren't going to use and ones that wouldn't fit around the script, in the long run this helped us when it came to finally getting back into the edit suite.
Another problem that occurred was the props we planned to use in the film we didn't have at home or couldn't manage to get hold of this put the film on hold on quiet a while and we wasted a lot of time trying to find people who had the props or buying them ourselves, if we had actually written down what we had or knew for definite who had what we would of saved time and the rush finish the film wouldn't of been so stressful.
The voice over for teddy took some time to put together, we auditioned for the part of the bear and herd a few voices both were excellent and both brought something different to the film and we were unable to decide who was better. However in the end we picked Alex because his energy levels and his ability to add an extra sound to teddy gave the character more personality.
What was your role in the pre-production,production and post production?
In the Pre-Production I took up a more creative role of finding inspiration for the contents of the short film and to come up with a title. I searched through books and the Internet, reading children's stories involving a boy and a creature to find the balance of a friendship to portray in the film; I took up this role because I wanted to be more involved in the background and meaning of the film.
In the production I was set the job of organising the shoots calling my group to let them know where to meet and what time we were taking photographs, once the photos were taken it was my job to organise the photographs on a laptop and put onto a USB ready to transport into the edit. In the post production I shared the editing and research into title fonts and music, I wanted to do my fair share so we made a rota and set days and times of who would do what so we could both say we tried everything and it was a joint effort. I enjoyed the edit of the film, it was a real sense of achievement when you look at what you have done.
What would you improve and what do you like?
I love this short film, I think it's really creative and it's something unusual, to make a short film without actually filming anything was going to be a challenge from one day but we stepped up and grabbed the opportunity, it became the most enjoyable project. I love characters, we spent a lot of time researching a teddy bear and how he might act and I believe we have created "Harry" to fit all the stereotypes. I like the balance of seriousness with the contrast of it being such a comedy, I also believe the film highlights issues in today's society it brings out morals with the context of comedy.
I would of liked to improve the quality of the pictures, they look a bit simple and give the effect maybe the film was thrown together and this is a false impression! We didn't use any effects in the film like cross fading or dissolve another picture into another, we could of used this to break up the film a little.
I would like to make the same film but using a video camera and go into much more depth into the relationship the teddy doesn't have with Liam! and what he does with himself on a daily basis waiting for him to come home.
The voice over for teddy took some time to put together, we auditioned for the part of the bear and herd a few voices both were excellent and both brought something different to the film and we were unable to decide who was better. However in the end we picked Alex because his energy levels and his ability to add an extra sound to teddy gave the character more personality.
What was your role in the pre-production,production and post production?
In the Pre-Production I took up a more creative role of finding inspiration for the contents of the short film and to come up with a title. I searched through books and the Internet, reading children's stories involving a boy and a creature to find the balance of a friendship to portray in the film; I took up this role because I wanted to be more involved in the background and meaning of the film.
In the production I was set the job of organising the shoots calling my group to let them know where to meet and what time we were taking photographs, once the photos were taken it was my job to organise the photographs on a laptop and put onto a USB ready to transport into the edit. In the post production I shared the editing and research into title fonts and music, I wanted to do my fair share so we made a rota and set days and times of who would do what so we could both say we tried everything and it was a joint effort. I enjoyed the edit of the film, it was a real sense of achievement when you look at what you have done.
What would you improve and what do you like?
I love this short film, I think it's really creative and it's something unusual, to make a short film without actually filming anything was going to be a challenge from one day but we stepped up and grabbed the opportunity, it became the most enjoyable project. I love characters, we spent a lot of time researching a teddy bear and how he might act and I believe we have created "Harry" to fit all the stereotypes. I like the balance of seriousness with the contrast of it being such a comedy, I also believe the film highlights issues in today's society it brings out morals with the context of comedy.
I would of liked to improve the quality of the pictures, they look a bit simple and give the effect maybe the film was thrown together and this is a false impression! We didn't use any effects in the film like cross fading or dissolve another picture into another, we could of used this to break up the film a little.
I would like to make the same film but using a video camera and go into much more depth into the relationship the teddy doesn't have with Liam! and what he does with himself on a daily basis waiting for him to come home.
How have the short films that you have studied/researched influenced your own production?
We watched a lot of drama short films that were full of tension and some were so dramatic and hard hitting and then to balance them out we watched cheesy short films that seemed to me to be useless?
The nitty gritty hard hitting ones were brilliant and I really enjoyed watching them but I wanted to take a story and turn it into something different, something that was unexpected. We chose the theme of rejection and loneliness and instead of making a drama that people would identify straight away and pick the genre we made it into a comedy. Out of all the films we watched what I noticed the most was the length of them, the longer ones dragged out and gave you too much information for a feature? or bored me because the story was so pointless, I used this conclusion to make ours only 2 minutes51 seconds long to grab audiences hold their attention and then let them go!
From watching the short films i noticed getting the characters right was so important for the story, so that's why we researched the character for so long to get it right.
We used Youtube to research a lot of college made video's by other students about teddy bears, we found most of them were animations and involved a cute and cuddly storyline; we wanted to break away from that so we could see teddy bears in a different light.
What was your other influences?
We decided to use a teddy bear because of the phrase "your never too old for a teddy" all members of the groups were coming up to the age of 18 and we joked about becoming adults and not needing one anymore, this triggered off an idea to use in the film "how would your teddy feel".
In the preparation class's for short film we looked at secrets postcards, one was written from a boy who wanted his teddy to talk to him who used part of this idea and adapted it make it more serious. Children's programmes were also a major influence with both of us with younger siblings/nephews/cousins we have recently been watching a lot of children's TV where teddy feature a lot, we thought it would be a nice idea to hear a serious story from a teddy.
We listened to a lot of songs involving friendship and drew pictures to match the lyrics of how a teddy bear might re-act to the song this helped us to develop the character.
Who is your target audience and how have you reached them?
Initially the film was targeted at young children from the age from 10 upwards but mostly reaching out to 12 year old leaving primary school ready for secondary school, however we had to consider the content very carefully. We watched through the film and were shocked at the amount of references to sex, violence and drugs there were and we thought it would be unacceptable to show this to young children so the rating was changed to 15+.
With peer pressure among teenagers we thought the film showed how it is okay to have a teddy as well as your social life and its not a childish thing. The film highlights situations that the age group can connect with and understand.
Where would you exhibit your short film?
Social networking not only connects people together but it allows you to share your work, so first I would upload to facebook and get my friends to leave positive feedback on the film so we can understand whether other people understand it. An ideal place to take the film would be London film festival it has many opportunities to showcase unusual films, the festivals audience is very board and it accommodates a lot of school trips therefore there is a chance of our target audience being there to see it. Word of mouth at the festival is a powerful tool so the film may get some "wanted" attention.
How does the piece conform to short film codes and conventions, think both in terms of technique and content?
In terms of technique our film is spot on short film codes and conventions, the length of the film is just under 3 minutes long; on average a film is no longer than 10 minutes but no shorter than 2 minutes.
However we cannot comment on fast pace cutting on filming techniques because we did not use a video camera we used a normal slr camera in terms of short films it is unusual to find one that has no footage, I think we pushed boundaries with this film. Our film does have a beginning middle and end and it has a good story structure, the characters are simple and well introduced. It has no special effects and looks like a budget version of a full length animation, the lightening was created from ordinary everyday light sources like it would in a short film because of the tight budgets.
