1 Minute Video Research
For my 1 minute film I have come up with a range of different ideas that I could work with, I researched a lot of other 1 minute films made by other students on YouTube and got ideas also from music videos as a lot of the time music video are centred around a story to fit the lyrics of the song. I also look at sites such as http://www.theoneminutes.org/ , http://www.theoneminutesjr.org/ and these really helped me on how to structure a 1 minute video and how to make a simple quick story that could fit into such a short space of time as well as have a beginning, middle and end to the film.
Videos I looked at:
Music Video: Stress by Justice
This video incorporates criminal anarchy by a group of teens in a gang all wearing the same jacket, there are no words to this song just techno music, and in this video a camera man follows this group around (camera man also a group member) a town in Paris which is unknown showing them harassing people, beating people, stealing, smashing and robbing shops and running away from police officers, at the end of the film 4 of the members including the camera man himself steal a car and drive away while also harassing people on the stress, they park in a secluded area and burn the car and then beat the camera man up, there is no explanation why they do these things because there is so dialog to this music video. I really liked some of the camera work on this music video and while it isn’t a 1 minute film it is a 7 minute music video it really inspired me to recreate something along the lines of this subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU7bFpPJiww
A fan made film which tells the tale of the film Forest Gump in a 1 minute mock up
In this video there is a group of people that tell the tale of the film Forest Gump, there is no special camera work done for this film other than the camera starting from one end of a field and moving backwards as the characters the people are playing move towards the camera but they always stay the same distance apart until the film ends. I find this video very clever, as they managed to make a very long film in the space of such a short time. It doesn’t quite help me for my own film, but it’s interesting to find out which important parts of the film they incorporated into their own short film and this made me think about the key moments in the film I’m going to make which would be important to my film and may help me get my film down to 1 minute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOvgJ0TxdfI
You can also find other one minute mock ups on films these people have done on YouTube here http://www.youtube.com/user/whycantihavespaces/videos
I also did looked at various videos on theoneminutesjr.org which includes a wide range or 1 minute films made my other people, some of these videos aren’t very good but the idea behind them is very good and I searched for ones which might help me make my own film, I took note of some camera angles and techniques people might have used on a certain subject such as killing someone and I came across this short film which is about a girl being killed by someone who rings her up with a robotic voice, she tries to get out of her house and the killer comes in the front door and kills her, there are a few good camera pans and techniques used to make the killer look more dangerous and I will probably use some of these for my own film.
http://www.theoneminutesjr.org/index.php?thissection_id=10&movie_id=200700257
This next film I have linked to below is about a girl running through Amsterdam to catch a train, there are a lot of pans of her running by and I think they may have sped up some parts of the film to make her look like she is running faster, it only shows a man walking to the train through parts of the film, at the end of the video you see the man getting on the train first with the girl running behind him, and they the camera cuts to inside the train on the girl falling asleep for all the running she did with the guy sitting next to her.
I think this film was done really well, it also included some footage of the train station clock which counted down to a minute which I thought was a clever idea, I think the story was a good idea as a lot of people rush to not be late for a train or bus etc. The video on Facebook could have been presented slightly better as you don’t get the idea that she is running to catch a train only until the end and the dimensions of the video on YouTube make it hard to see what’s going on sometimes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6DA458Pyk8
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1 Minute Film Script
Scene
1.
Dark street corner with lamp post lighting shining down on dead and live characters
(SILENT) with back music
2.
(Tv news in the background of body found of kid’’
Character 1 ‘’Ricky’’ rings friend ‘’Aaron’’
Camera changes scene to house, Aaron answers phone to Ricky
Ricky: ‘’you seen the news…’’
Aaron: ‘’I have an idea who it might be, and who his next target is’’
Ricky: ‘’Ok we will have to do this together’’
Aaron: ‘’yeah we will find him tonight, meet me in the usual place’’
Ricky: ‘’ok’’
Cuts to Aaron putting phone down
3.
Both character get filmed making there way to a meeting point, Aaron is seen with a knife walking through his neighbourhood and Ricky is seen driving and then walking toward the meeting point, then both characters end up alone at night down a secluded well lit street
Both character come face to face Ricky not knowing what’s happening, then suddenly Aaron stabs Ricky in the stomach, Ricky falls to the ground and dies.
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STORY BOARD
My story board does not match my final film as my story board would of passed the one minute mark so I had to make some slight adjustments to my finaly film but this is what it would like if I had more time on my film.
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SHOT LIST
Scene
1.
Masked killer stands there holding a bloody knife in his hand while a body lies there dead on the street lit by a lamp posts.
(Camera opens up with an Extreme Close up of a masked face, the camera then pans down the subjects arms staying in an extreme close up shot of his hand)
(Camera cuts to a Wide Shot of body on the ground and subject standing beside the body being lit by lamp post)
(SILENT) with backing music music
2.
(Camera cuts to a Mid Shot of Ricky sitting on a couch, then cuts to a Medium Close up in the same scene)
(Camera then cuts to a Mid Shot of Aaron sitting on couch, then cuts to a Medium close up in the same scene)
(Cut to Extreme close up of Ricky on the phone and then the same shot of Aaron on the phone to Ricky ‘’this continues while until the phone call ends’’)
(Tv news in the background of body found of kid’’
Character 1 ‘’Ricky’’ rings friend ‘’Aaron’’
Camera changes scene to house, Aaron answers phone to Ricky
Ricky: ‘’you seen the news…’’
Aaron: ‘’I have an idea who it might be, and who his next target is’’
Ricky: ‘’Ok we will have to do this together’’
Aaron: ‘’yeah we will find him tonight, meet me in the usual place’’
Ricky: ‘’ok’’
Cuts to Aaron putting phone down
3.
(Camera cuts to a Medium close up of Aaron walking past the camera)
(Mid shot of Aaron coming through door to outside)
(Close up of Ricky driving car)
(Camera follows Aaron with a Medium Close up)
(Camera follows Ricky with a Medium Close up)
(Camera follows Aaron with a Medium Close up)
(Camera follows Ricky with a Medium Close up)
(Aaron walks towards camera while camera keeps the same distance from Aaron as he is walking with a Close up)
(Camera follows Ricky from a side while keeping a Close up of his face)
(Camera cuts to a Wide Shot of Ricky walking towards camera eventually stopping at an Extreme Close Up of Ricky’s face)
(Camera cuts to a mid-shot of Aaron walking around the corner he then walks past the camera)
(Camera cuts to a Wide shot of Ricky and Aaron facing each other under a lit street lamp)
(Camera cuts to a Close up of Aaron stabbing a knife in Ricky and then cuts back to a Wide shot of Ricky falling over)
(Cuts to a mid-shot of Ricky lying on the floor then cuts back to a Wide Shot of body on floor and Aaron standing beside body)
Both character get filmed making there way to a meeting point, Aaron is seen with a knife walking through his neighbourhood and Ricky is seen driving and then walking toward the meeting point, then both characters end up alone at night down a secluded well lit street
Both character come face to face Ricky not knowing what’s happening, then suddenly Aaron stabs Ricky in the stomach, Ricky falls to the ground and dies.
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TREATMENT
The process of this video brief has been a time consuming one depending on the type of video you do, I had trouble coming up with an idea when given this task at the start of the year and I didn’t know either to do a 3 minute documentary or a one minute film and I initially went for the documentary choice and came up with a few ideas of what I could document but because I have always wanted to do a mini film I decided later on to do a film instead as I had come up with an idea for a film during my process of coming up with a documentary subject. Once I had decided that a film was the way I planned to go I had to make more of a story of the idea and think about all the little details such as time I had to shoot, weather, was I going to shoot at night or day, how many people was going to be in my film etc. I spent a lot of time planning all these little details first and then I had to work out what I would film first and which was easiest, I enjoyed filming this video and it was a new area that I had never gone into before so it was a new interesting experience for me. I decided to film the majority of my film at night due to the subject of murder and gang violence which is usually connected to night time shots in full length films to add more drama but there was the issue of lighting so I had to find a well-lit neighbourhood I could use and try and get a lot of my shots under street lights which I think worked out well for me as I found the perfect location under a street light for my first scene. Some scenes in my film are shot during the day and those parts was fairly easy to film and make a script for as it’s the only dialog in my entire film, all I had to do was mix these two day time shots together in the editing process, I also had to film myself and a friend not long after each other because of the major weather changes we get and I didn’t want both shots to look any different from each other as they are supposed to be at the very same time. The dialog in the film is not the entire dialog I had shot as there were a few more lines on the script but because of the time the film had to be only one minute I had to shorten everything that was irrelevant to getting the film moving quickly story wise. It was a last minute decision not to have any other dialog in my film towards the end as I was already pushing the time in my film and I didn’t have an ending so I decided to take a little inspiration from the music video Stress by JUSTICE which my film is partially based off. When I had decided what the ending of my film would be like it was a fairly easy to shoot without any breaks, once I had my ending and all the footage I had shot which was about approx. (8 minutes worth, maybe more) I then had to go through the pain staking process of editing it all together and make it work, but before I did that I had to get an audio track which involved a woman on the news talking about a murder of a teenage boy and I also needed a soundtrack that sounded fitting to gang crime, Once I had everything I needed I then edited it all together to try and keep a continuity going throughout my film and also get sound levels right.
I have learned a lot in the past couple of months about filming and if I was the ever to have another attempt at this subject I could do it again with a little bit more experience on filming and editing, and I have also learned from the mistakes I made and also the things that went right during filming, I would probably try and find an easier process of getting my film onto a computer to edit as using tapes really limited the time I got to get my film to a digital format and it was time consuming.
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FINISHED 1 MIN VIDEO
RICKY GREGORY 