Genre

Narrative

Representation

Audience

Media language

Genre

Genre: the genre of a short film is defined by the context of the plot, and similarities based on characters, situations and plot twists.

Technical definition: A class or category of artistic endeavour having a particular form, technique, or the like.

As far as genre’s go, it is mostly a way for an audience to assume the plot of the storyline to predict if they will enjoy it, or whether it is suitable to watch.

Narrative

The spoken or written account of connected events

A short film commonly contains a rather basic, if slightly surreal plot, which follows one of two basic situations (and in-fact all films/book follow this as well):

Stranger comes to town

Man goes on a journey

These two storyline basis set up every single story, whether literally or loosely, it all comes down to those.

representation

Representation features many theories, as there are always issues with the representation of genders, race, sexuality, class and regional identity.

Representation refers to the way In which a director or writer has chosen to show something in the short film, from a race group to a whole gender.

Theory wise, one of the leading theorists would be Laura Mulvey, who created the male gaze theory.

Other theorists have combined representation with genre in stating claims such as: “in the Slashergenre, women are clearly victimised throughout”. Whilst others might say that in most Slasher’s, it is in-fact a woman who rises above the chaos to finally kill the masked killer.

Audience

With film, rather than short film, it is more important to work around an audience as the aim is to always make money, and you do so through your audience. Now, a short film can have a specific audience, but also shorts films themselves feature only a small, niche audience that cant be built up upon much.

The most common audience of short films would be film students themselves, meaning that film references are always popular, and working with classical theories and symbolism helps also.

Media language

Every medium has its own language. It’s

a way for the people who work within it

to communicate smoothly, and media is

no exception.

Media terminology refers to some of the

specific terms used exclusively to

describe media things.

John Fiske: “denotation is what is filmed.

Connotation is how it is filmed”

Media language

When we refer to micro elements we are

referring to the different elements that

make up a film, and we use these micro

elements to help us define and describe

certain aspects of a scene.