Delilah's Media Blog 2

After showing my first treatment of my short film, Abracadabra, to my teacher, he thinks that the twist at the end is too random. There should be something leading up to Ben's sudden ability to do magic.

In media, we have been assigned to create a short film. This is my first idea of what the plot could be for my short film: A teenage boy, Ben is an aspiring magician. It is first made clear that he is not good at it, yet he doesn't give up and even wants it as a career. He is shown attempting a few different tricks, and failling. His parents are disappointed and worried, because of his determination to have a career in something he isn't talented at, and wouldn't be realistic, even if he was talented. They are reading an email from his school, stating that he hasn't been doing his homework. He attempts another trick, and fails. His parents lecture him about not doing well in school, and him wasting his time with trying to do tricks, and threaten to confiscate all his magician things. Then, Ben makes them disapear, with a magic trick. 

In films, there is usually at least one character that is easily relatable to the audience. This character is normally the protagonist, but there can be exceptions. In the beginning of the film, Mean Girls, the protagonist, Cady, is portrayed as being easy to identify with. It is her first day at a new school, and it is made clear that she feels isolated.  She doesn't make any friends on her first day, therefor has to eat lunch, alone, in the bathroom, as there is nowhere for her to sit in the cafeteria. In this scene, it would be easy for anyone who has felt isolated/alone to identify with her. Especially for someone who feels that way in a particular social environment.  In the film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, everything works out for Ferris Bueller, and he is unrealistically popular, to the point of being adored by every social group at school, the police hearing that he's sick, and wishing him well, a water tower and the Chicago Cubs stadium, having ...

Since I have to create a short film, I am researching short films. This is a very known short film, called The Black Hole. It follows the joke structure narrative, which is the kind of narrative I want my short film to follow. We immediately see the character and he looks miserable. He is clearly in an office, and he is wearing a button shirt and a tie, which indicates he works there. This is done to make him relatable to the audience, as there are plenty of people who are unhappy with their job. He then discovers a paper, that has a black hole on it, that he can put his hand through. He puts it on a vending machine, and gets a chocolate bar from it. This seems relatively innocent, but it sets up what happens after. He goes to his work's safe, and grabs some money from it, with the black hole. He gets greedy and takes a lot of money. He gets so carried away, that he climbs into the black hole, to try and get in the safe. The twist at the end is that the paper with the black hol...

Experimental  Experimental  film,  experimental  cinema or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non- narrative  forms and alternatives to traditional  narratives  or methods of working.

Punchline  A punch line concludes a  joke ; it is intended to make people laugh. It is the third and final part of the  typical joke structure . It follows the introductory framing of the joke and the narrative which sets up for the punch line. In a broader sense punch line can also refer to the unexpected and funny conclusion of any performance, situation or story.

The three act structure  The three-act structure is a model used in screenwriting that divides a fictional narrative into three parts (acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation and the Resolution. The first act  is usually used for exposition, to establish the main characters, their relationships and the world they live in. Later in the first act, a dynamic, on-screen incident occurs that confronts the main character (the protagonist), whose attempts to deal with this incident lead to a second and more dramatic situation, known as the first turning point, which (a) signals the end of the first act, (b) ensures life will never be the same again for the protagonist and (c) raises a dramatic question that will be answered in the climax of the film.  The second act , also referred to as "rising action", typically depicts the protagonist's attempt to resolve the problem initiated by the first turning point, only to find him- or herself in ever worsening...