Our short film follows a young adult girl who, in her efforts to seek help for her existential crisis, finds herself in the office of a very eccentric therapist called Dr. Bootleg. The main social groups represented in the film were young adults trying to find their way in life (Sam) and eccentrics who may not be taken seriously but somehow know what they’re doing (Dr. Bootleg). A high percentage of young adults in the age range of 18-25, which is what Sam is, often feel lost in life and don’t know what to do with their lives. Gaye Tuchman states that women are portrayed in media in limited roles as compared to men; this is especially evident when it comes to the representation of mental health of women as even today, its sparse and limited. Thus we wanted to touch upon this specific representation with Sam. Moreover, being within this age range I often feel like this too thus I really wanted to focus on representing this particular social group. I was successfully able to represent this social group in the form of Sam by designing her with a plain black t-shirt and jeans; the colour black conventionally signifies her dull mental state and was used to make her stand out from Dr. Bootlegs colourful office along with the colour grading.

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Pairing her up with an eccentric therapist was done for comedic reasons as the Binary opposition, as Levi Strauss puts it, created made their interactions more humorous. Dr. Bootleg is a great example of absurdist representation; people who believe that the universe is irrational and meaningless and that the search for order brings the individual into conflict with the universe. For Dr. Bootleg we started from the idea of an eccentric and unconventional therapist who may seem goofy but is actually really good at his job. Describing him is a very difficult thing because to be honest I wanted him to be more like a concept than an actual human being. I didn't want the audience to be able to tell his gender because that he is literally goofy therapist personified and nothing else. So he may have the voice of a woman and the moustache and attire of a man but he is literally just Dr. Bootleg and me and Saman both feel that adds to the humor of the situation.

 

Since there were more products this time around we focused heavily on creating a cohesive brand for them. First and foremost, I created the logo for ‘FILM GEEKS STUDIO’, taking heavy inspiration from a game called Bendy and The Ink Machine. We used this logo EVERYWHERE, from the merchandise posts to the post cards thus it served as a stamp of authenticity and aided in brand recognition. Even the colour pallet helped to pull together all the products, making them more cohesive. The pallet was used in the postcard, Instagram and even the colour grading of the film which allowed us to transfer the vibe of the film to the other two products. We were also extremely careful when using fonts and kept our entire branding to two fonts, Berkshire Swash and Old standard; these two again were throughout all three products to create a sense of identity and cohesion.  Another element that we kept consistent throughout our branding was the use of the duck and the chick; As you can see with our products the duck specifically stands out as our mascot for the project as we used him again and again in all three products.

At the end of the day making sure the audience was engaged when it came to all three products was the main goal. When it came to the film I drew in small animatic portions to create visual diversity thus engaging audiences through visual cues. Moreover, the use of a cheery sound tracks and sound effects also helped us to engage the audience’s attention and immerse them within the film while the use of zoom ins helped emphasis and bring attention to the characters’ expressions. Engaging audiences through social media was much easier as we were able to utilize Instagram’s most engaging feature…stories and highlights. Through these we were able to post small updates and work in progress’ to keep the audience engaged throughout the process of making the film and to increase audience anticipation. Viewers were kept informed and wondering about the product through grid posts of movie screen shots and the introductory video, which featured BTS footage. Merchandise was also advertised on Instagram which further engaged audiences by allowing for a deeper connection with the film to be formed.  Moving onto the postcard, I followed a simple rule of framing when placing the elements to allow the focus to land on the characters in the middle. This paired with bright and fun colours help capture the audience’s attention and engage them within the postcard thus leading them to anticipate the release of the film more.

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My research was one thing that aided me in this project; it helped me with every part of this portfolio, whether it was on postcards, short films, or my social media profile. When it came to researching about film shots and animatic making I utilized a lot of my previous knowledge I gained from my AS foundation project. Since I had experimented with tilts and zooms before and even animatic making in my AS CCR, they came really easily to me and became some of the recognizable features of our distinct editing style. In addition, Saman and I were already fairly knowledgeable about colour grading and how different colours affect footage, so we made the most of it by using bright yellow colour grading to introduce Dr. Bootleg for the first time to reflect his upbeat demeanour, allowing Sam to stand out because of said colour grading further emphasising her feelings of not belonging. I did however learn a lot about comedic timing and utilizing sound effects in conjunction with that to create peak comedic moments; the use of this can be seen when Sam is initially stunned when Dr. Bootleg hands her a duck. When it came to the postcard however, I had no prior knowledge of its conventions, thus researching on the placement of elements and the different types of post cards really aided me in this journey. We were able to add all of the conventional postcard elements like studio logo, actor names, log lines and awards after doing a deep dive into these features. The same could be said about the use of Instagram grids. While researching how professional Instagram accounts set up for film releases I came across posting posts in grid format to make a bigger picture on your Instagram page; I utilized this idea while posting our film banners and postcard. Other conventional posts I added on our Instagram were the coming soon banner and the introduction video.

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We broke two major conventions in our film to add a little pizazz and create something different. Our film is very dialogue heavy while most short films don’t have this much dialogue. We did this because we wanted to portray comedy mainly through dialogues; basically we relied on the dialogues to bring in most of the comedic elements. Another unconventional thing about our short film is that it doesn’t have an explicit conclusion. We didn’t find a conclusion necessary to the plot and agreed that a more abrupt conclusion would be funnier. Another fun thing you’ll notice is the intertextuality used within the film. Behind Dr. Bootleg if you look closely there is a DUCKZILLA poster, referencing the Godzilla. I specifically chose this poster because of my love for the franchise and the fact that it matched Dr. Bootleg’s duck vibes. On top of this, Dr. Bootleg also references Shakespeare’s ‘The Comedy of Errors’ play, a classic comedic play that Dr. Bootleg would very much enjoy.

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To conclude, my advanced portfolio provided an opportunity to explore challenges that professional amateurs face at various stages of production. It was a rewarding experience in the end because my teammate Saman and I were able to create unique media products that conformed to a few conventions and at the same time steered away from some of them. The entire process was fulfilling indeed allowing me to be a part of the evolving media landscape through my short film, its postcard and the promotional instagram page.