Audience Research: Focus Group

Conventions of Genre: Drama

The main conventions of the drama genre are:

• Realistic Characters
• Emotional themes, e.g. Alcholism, Drug Addiction, Racial Prejudice, Religious intolerance, poverty and crime.
• These themes often put the characters in conflict
• Fast paced action
• Physical conflict
• Superficial Character Developments 
• Sole focus on the main issue

Short Film Review: Strangers (2004)

The short film I have chosen to review is called Strangers and was written and directed in 2004 by Erez Tadmore and Guy Nattiv. The film is set on a train where two men, one a Jew and one Islamic are sitting opposite each other. A group of men enter the train with shaved heads and sit down opposite the Islamic man and spray paint a swastika symbol on his newspaper. This gives the audience the idea they are racist, tension is raised between the group when the Jewish man's phone begins to ring, his ringtone being a stereotypical Jewish song. The group of men look around as they now know he's a Jew, the group get up and try to fight both men, however they help each other and successfully get off the train unharmed.

I liked the type of shots this short film used, I thought it was filmed in a very interesting way. Also, I liked the theme of tackling racial issues and putting aside differences like religion to help each other in a time of need. I didn't like the time wasted on certain shots, I believe they could of developed the narrative more had they not spent so much time focusing on one shot to emphasis tension.

 Strangers (2004) Youtube

What is a short film?

A short film is a video lasting between 2 and 15 minutes. It usually has a complete narrative, a beginning, a middle and a conclusive end, which is usually reasonably simple so as to be understood in such a short space of time. It tends to revolve around plot twists and plot twists, by this the audience can see that it is a form of film derived from the feature length film and often acts as a platform for aspirant Hollywood actors and directors. The storylines of short films are often fable-like, they have a moral ending and the audience walks away feeling as though they have learned something about life.