Monday Morning Madness Short Film – Media Studies

Music research for our short film

We have been looking in particular at three videos which we have found to aid us in creating our music and sound effects. We have been looking at Looney Tunes and Charlie Chaplin to provide us with ideas so we can see the conventions of a silent film and how the music comments on the action taking place. We have chosen to look at Charlie Chaplin because as our film will be in black and white and will be silent we need to gather ideas and knowledge in the conventions a typical silent film has to make our short film realistic, also as our short film will have slapstick comedy looking at Charlie Chaplin we can see what sound effects they use and how the music relates to the mood of the scenes. Looking at Looney Tunes will also aid us in ideas as they include a lot of sound effects with the movement. Using both Charlie Chaplin and Looney Tunes we can see what instruments they use and how they use the different tones for different moods.

Our first film we looked at was Charlie Chaplin – Golf Antics - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWRuSYPXLE0

In this video at the beginning they start with a slide saying the title and who is starring in the film, this is a convention of the older films that are silent which we are hoping to include into our work. As we see the first slide open the music we hear are trumpets playing to open the film which is a theme that runs throughout silent films which re hoping to include.

The film has music running throughout the whole short film, the instruments they use are from what sounds like an orchestra and as the characters are moving faster we hear

the music gaining speed to follow the action, when the characters are standing and getting ready to hit the ball the music slows down and has a sense of comedy with the tune they have chosen to use. Its set at a higher pitch to create this sense of comedy which we will be including into ours as this is a convention of a silent of a silent film, there is no speech just overly expressed facial expressions and body language which we will also be including into our short film.

One effect we will try create is shown here in this picture to the right, as soon as we see this we can tell it’s a older film, the contrast of the film is black and white but also at times there are lines through the action to show the age and how technology wasn’t as developed as it now, using Adobe we will be able to create this effect and also create the effect of the video shaking just like the older films.

The sound effects they use in this particular short film are very repetitive which we felt didn’t work as well as it could of, when the man falls in the water there is a sound of a whistle/recorder being played which adds to the comedy factor but this sound is used in many other places which we felt didn’t work so when we add our sound track and sound effects we will try to avoid repetition. Along with the sound effects being repeated, some of the music was too and we felt this did work as this added to comedy factor and times, for example the same section of music was played but at a slower rate as the characters were moving slower.

Monday Morning Madness Short Film – Media Studies

Second Charlie Chaplin short film - the circus - [the mirror maze] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UZHYfqOY0Q

This short film we have found, is similar to the other Charlie Chaplin film, the music is used in the same way for example the beginning of this film we see Charlie Chaplin running and the music tempo is faster yet when he stops running it changes and becomes slower to show the feeling of the scene is changing. We are hoping to show this in our short film through music, for example when Joe is deciding what breakfast he wants we thought our idea would to be play violins showing how slow he is and then we switch back to Charlotte we would have a piano playing really fast showing that she is rushing about trying to get to school on time.

This short film includes slides also like the other one which we will be including into ours for example when Charlotte loses her shoe we will have a slide after saying “my shoe!”

just like on Charlie Chaplin. We have found some designs which will border the slides, they are white just like the one used in the last film, and we felt this would add to the effect of it being a black and white a short film and its typical convention.

Just like the other short film there are places of typical slapstick comedy for example when Charlie Chaplin is in the mirror maze he walks into the mirror and loses his hate and then when he goes to pick it up he hits his nose on the mirror. The ideas that we have had so far for slapstick comedy are:

Falling up the curb Getting a hair brush stuck in there hair Stepping in dog mess A bus driving by through a big puddle and splashing them Losing a tooth brush Getting gel clumps in their hair Burnt toast

These are some of our ideas which we are hoping to include as slapstick comedy throughout our short film. Also using new technology we are hoping to add effects such as; when Joe is cleaning his teeth we will record his for a longer period of time and when we come to edit this section we will use a tool which will speed up the action, this is because our audience is set at teens and modern day technology for them makes films much more interesting for them to see.

Monday Morning Madness Short Film – Media Studies

Looney Tunes third video – pigs in polka 1943 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh11A41klL4

In this Looney Tunes short film we looked at the first two and half minutes of the little pigs building there houses, to begin with as you can see there is a character telling us information about what it going to happen, we felt this idea was good and to begin with we will have our teacher that is shouting into camera here as this sets the tone and gives the reason why the two characters have to get to school on time and also this gives the plot of the story to our audience so they understand clearly what is happening throughout.

As we are concentrating on the sound and the effects they use in these particular scenes of the little pigs, they are very comical the way the action is commented on by the music, as the little pigs build their houses the music slows and fastens which gives it this comical effect, we hope to use this in our short film for example when Joe is choosing which cereal’s in the morning we hope to have slow music to show how slow he is, also when Charlotte is rushing around we will choose faster tempo for the scene.

Also as many silent films and Looney Tunes have sections that have been sped up we are going to include this into our silent short film, all of or film will be sped up but some sections will be faster than others. We have tried to use particular sections which we felt would add to the comical genre of out film, for example when Joe is brushing his teeth we have sped up the action.

From all three of these videos we have gained knowledge and ideas we will be using in our short film and will try to incorporate them keeping to our target audience still and using ideas from these three clips.