AUDIENCE RESEARCH.

To start off my research, I decided to have a look at how many people in the UK own pets, and what the most popular pet is today. In some states in America, it is found that people do not 'own' their pet, but they are actually considered to be the pet's guardian - showing that people should care for a pet like they would care for a child.

According to a 2007 survey undertaken by the University of Bristol found that 31% of the population owned dogs, and 26% owned cats, making that 10.5 million dogs, and 10.3 million cats in the UK.

REPRESENTATION.

Again. I apologise, but as I delve deeper and deeper, I discover more and more interesting things. One film I remember is the film 'Cats and Dogs', a film about the 'war' between felines and canines. An interesting thing is that cats are represented as the evil ones, and dogs are seen as good, and win at the end. This shows that an audience would respond more positively to dogs being shown as heroes - I know I certainly wouldn't have gone to see it when I was younger had it been cats prevailing at the end instead of dogs.

POSTERS

Seeing as a poster is my subsidiary task one, I decided to have a look at posters for some films featuring animals and deconstruct them.

The first poster I chose to deconstruct is the poster for Lassie (1994). At the bottom of the poster we see a young boy and Lassie, the fictional collie, running together - of course this connates to the traditional saying of 'man's best friend'. This relates to the tagline of "best friends are forever"; underneath large lettering of Lassie's name in red - the red denotes perhaps love, but also could be a symbol for blood, because often in Lassie films there will be some hideous display of animal cruelty.

The next film poster I chose to deconstruct was 'Cujo', a film about a dog who turns savage after being bitten by a bat. This one is basically self-explanatory - red lettering denotes blood, crazed dog face - big teeth denotes death and grevious bodily harm and what not. I actually find this quite frightening after a time - the more I look at it the more human the eyes seem - perhaps this was deliberate, and distances us from the though of this crazy dog, and makes it seem more human, personifies it.

REPRESENTATION OF DOGS

Whilst I have considered good representation of dogs, I haven't look at BAD representation of dogs. One film I have looked at is 'Cujo', the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel. he gentle St. Benrard, Cujo is bitten by a dog with rabies, and so turns savage and carnage ensues.
Another film I looked at was 'Dog Soldiers', and one point that interested me was that at the start of the film, a soldier was asked to shoot a dog and he refused - this shows people's attitudes towards dogs as good.
One point I did notice about these films was that the dogs bad nature was not self inflicted, they had had something happen to them to make them turn vicious.

DEATH OF ANIMALS IN FILM

Because in my film I will be looking at the death of a beloved pet, I will neeed to look at how the film industry handles the death of animals.

One film that comes to mind when I think about it, is 'Four Lions', Chris Morris' debut film about a bunch of terrorists. During one scene in the film, they are running around with some bombs (sounds terribly grown up, I know), when there is an accident and both a sheep and their friend dies. Although it sounds quite heavy in writing, in the film it is treated as a comic moment - and often death of animals are used for comic effect. Another example of this is the 2003 film ''Just Married' - in one scene, Brittany Murphy's character's boyfriend, played by Ashton Kutcher accidentally kills her dog. I remember watching this film and everyone I was with laughing at this moment, but I personally never found it funny.

However, we are all familiar with the film Bambi - when his mother is killed by the hunters, I don't think that there is a dry eye in the house. In the film Bambi, Disney are not as explicit as the two previous films I have mentioned - although Bambi was made in 1942. A more recent film by Disney dealing with animals is 'Homeward Bound', the tale of 2 dogs and a cat that go cross country in the aim of finding their family. Among the gang is an old dog, named Shadow, who towards the end of the film, injures himself, and is, at the time, presumed dead by his owners. The other animals encourage him to get up to go and greet his owner, yet he insists they go on without him because he is too old. However, eventually he gets up and goes and greets his owners. I think that in was this is very similar to my own ideas for my short film - another aspect that interested me was the fact that the younger puppy in the film voices his desire not to have a permanent home; which relates to unloyalty in puppies, another aspect in my film I'm going to highlight.

UPDATE: PLAN/DO/REVIEW

I actually did some filming over the weekend - which was a bit stressful. They say you should never work with children or animals; and I attempted to work with both. I will be reviewing the filming I did for my opening shot - which was one continuous take - on Thursday.
The shot was meant to be: starting in my conservatory, looking out into the garden at the dog owner and the old pet, playing together. PROBLEM 1: the dog would not play, we ran out of biscuits to make him play, and eventually we had to coax him with some cheese and onion crisps. Then I would pick up the camera, and enter into my hallway where we had positioned some beautiful pictures of the old dog, with one frame with some R.I.P. lettering on it (for the less perceptive people out there). PROBLEM 2: the old dog, who the dog owner was playing with in the garden would run through and get in the eyeline of the camera. Then I would walk up the hallway to the front door, where the dog owner would enter with his new dog. PROBLEM 3: timing problems. The dog owner would run from my garden round to the front door, so there would be timing problems and I had to walk very sloooooowly.
But fingers crossed all went well.
On Thursday I will be reviewing my footage, and storyboarding the rest of my film, so I will need a camera and firewire, please.

SHORT FILM DISTRIBUTION

Where are short films shown?
Short films are shown before films at the cinema, which many independent cinemas do, but also Pixar films will often show a short film before the main feature. Another place I have noticed short films being shown is on Channel 4 after the seven o'clock news, a feature which is called the 'Three Minute Wonder'; though these films are often more documentary style films, I think this is a good place to show a short film, as there will be a large amount of viewers.
Another area with a lot of scope for short film is the internet. Both channel 4 and Virgin have competitions to find good short films, and many BBC also has an online archive of short films. Video hosting websites such as Youtube and Vimeo are also good oppurtunities for short films to get views.
I think I would distribute my film either at an independent cinema, or on the Internet. The internet has a larger potential audience than an independent cinema.