Short Film Research: (Buried Treasure/Mystery)

    Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!. I am continuing to research short films and their conventions. I am reviewing short films that follow my genre to learn about conventions I would need to use for my short film. As the genre I am using is mystery, I am going to be watching mystery short films. In this blog I am going to research the mystery short film, “Buried Treasure”. I was able to find this short film option on YouTube. 

    When the film opens, the music is the first thing once again that I notice. This music is different though from the last movie I reviewed. The difference was that this music got louder progressively as the opening of the short film continued. The lighting is the same though. I notice the dark lighting. The dark lighting creates a very deep shadow and puts spotlights on certain aspects. This goes back to the point convention I’ve noticed in mystery films which is having the audience very focused on the little details. 

    When watching, I continue to see the convention commonly used in mystery short films which is simplicity. This is even shown through the camera shots and angles. These are shots and angles such as aerial view, tracking shots, and close up shots. Furthermore, I can see this through the editing like I have seen is commonly used. I can see this in the editing by the use of simplistic editing with cross cutting being the main editing technique used. Another type of camera trick I've seen used as a contention in mystery films is by the focus of the camera. For example, it is commonly used that the camera would be focused on one thing but something else would be happening in the background. I’ve also noticed lots of wide shots. 

    Another thing I have noticed is that the music tends to play mostly the entire time throughout mystery short films. But it is so subtle that it doesn’t distract you from what is going on, it also remains very low. In mystery short films, there was also a lack of dialogue which I think makes the audience be focused on what is going on and not words. The use of sound effects to build the darkness factor of mystery films is also very conventional and the music changes based on what is happening in the movie. 

    After reviewing this short film, I continued to look at more long normal films that matched the mystery genres. Some other movies I found include Oppenheimer and Shutter Island. When reviewing this movie, something I found that I disliked is the receptiveness of the genre. This receptiveness comes from the shots used and the editing techniques. While it is simplistic, after reviewing multiple mystery films the receptiveness of things in this film is something I found I was not fond of. I did like the filter added in the editing process to these movies though. I liked the gray contrast to make the dark and spooky convention. But that’s it from me my group picked our genre, we researched our genre further, and next we are going to start planning. Be back for more!