Research Dossier

When making the Single Camera Short I watched a few short films made by other creator to increase my knowledge and learn new camera techniques. This was to try and improve the overall quality of the production.
My first video that I took inspiration from is 'After DayZ' by Corridor Digital. Where a survivor wakes up in the middle of no where and begins to explore. He comes across a Russian survivor who has mercy on the character. The two then gather resources and encounter or survivors with military equipment who are hunting down other survivors. As the film goes on the night comes and the Russian and american get the car working and are ambushed by the military men. The American throws a flare at the military men causing the zombies to swarm the military men killing them. The American ignites another an proceeded to run away from the zombies as the Film ends. The film Is based of of the Video Game Mod for ARMA 2: Dayz where a zombie virus has infected a Russian coastal County surrounding Chernogorsk.  I chose to analyse this short film as the setting and the actor placement increase the audiences ability to feel immersed and it help portray emotions.

Along with the white backdrop the American looks feeble and weak compared to the Russian, due to placement of the actors. 

My second short film that I analysed was Time Trap by Michael Shanks, Time Trap is about a robot/spaceman landing on Earth after his ship suffered a malfunction as he begins to scour the surface for a matching pipe. He uses time travel to go back in time via small portals. The short film doesn't include dialog yet the character portrays how he feels through hums and his eye lighting up green when he is happy with something. The film features comedic scenes that compliment the film in a way that doesn't make the jokes bad.  I could incorporate some of the ways the character interacts with the environment in my short film such as looking at a item and instead of talking he could click his fingers as though he has thought of an idea.

When doing my  research on possible effects I may use for my short film, I realised that If I was going to create my action film I would need to know how to create a realistic muzzle flare. for this I used FreddieW and BrandonJLa's Realistic Muzzle Flare Tutorial. This helped me as they used the same editing program as myself as well as talking me through the steps required for it to look great.


To gain a large audience It would be wise to include comedy to my film as 'between 1995 and 2016.[1]' 'Comedies topped the list, with total ticket sales of 54.9 billion US dollars.[2]' This shows that there is a very large demographic. This is followed by action films such as Indiana Jones's  Raiders of the lost Ark and Die Hard [3] which have been watched globally and both are aired on television seasonally.