Generic Suicide Research

According to lists posted on the internet between 40% - 50% of suicides are done through hanging with the remaining percentage taken up mostly with gun-shot inflicted deaths and wrist slashing, there is also a small number who used either overdose or asphyxiation.




Hanging appears to be one of the most shocking and visually disturbing of all the deaths unlike the other methods that can be done almost instantly and without much difficulty a hanging requires time and effort for it to succeed which shows a grim determination of the individual.

However very few people leave messages or reasons behind to explain their actions and as a result their deaths are relatively mysterious which has caused the law enforcement to assume every suicide without explanation to have been committed by an outside party thus making almost every suicide attempt in some way supernatural since the act of the killing ones self is unnatural in itself.

Scientific Suicide Research

Durkheim stated that there are four types of suicide:

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Egoistic suicides are the result of a weakening of the bonds that normally integrate individuals into the collectively: in other words a breakdown or decrease of social integration. Durkheim refers to this type of suicide as the result of "excessive individuation", meaning that the individual becomes increasingly detached from other members of his community. Those individuals who were not sufficiently bound to social groups (and therefore well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals) were left with little social support or guidance, and therefore tended to commit suicide on an increased basis. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, particularly males, who, with less to bind and connect them to stable social norms and goals, committed suicide at higher rates than married people.

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Altruistic suicides occur in societies with high integration, where individual needs are seen as less important than the society's needs as a whole. They thus occur on the opposite integration scale as egoistic suicide. As individual interest would not be considered important, Durkheim stated that in an altruistic society there would be little reason for people to commit suicide. He stated one exception, namely when the individual is expected to kill him or herself on behalf of society – a primary example being the soldier in military service.

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Anomic suicides are the product of moral deregulation and a lack of definition of legitimate aspirations through a restraining social ethic, which could impose meaning and order on the individual conscience. This is symptomatic of a failure of economic development and division of labour to produce Durkheim's organic solidarity. People do not know where they fit in within their societies. Durkheim explains that this is a state of moral disorder where man's desires are limitless and, thus, his disappointments are infinite.

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Fatalistic suicides occur in overly oppressive societies, causing people to prefer to die than to carry on living within their society. This is an extremely rare reason for people to take their own lives, but a good example would be within a prison; people prefer to die than live in a prison with constant abuse and excessive regulation that prohibits them from pursuing their desires.

These four types of suicide are based on the degrees of imbalance of two social forces: social integration and moral regulation. Durkheim noted the effects of various crises on social aggregates – war, for example, leading to an increase in altruism, economic boom or disaster contributing to anomie.

Short Film Distribution

Distribution of a film can take a number of different forms depending on the company that developed the film and the crew’s contacts within the industry. However in the case of short films the marketing and distribution can be more complex due to the lack of interest generated by the general public towards them, in most cases only the more dedicated fans of the film medium will be able to appreciate them or even know where to find them. As a result appealing to a wider audience is difficult but not impossible especially now that certain station, namely BBC and Channel 4 have begun showing short films/documentaries in their normal advertisement slots and even some in the breaks of their main feature films. These usually tend to be educational or depict a life from a different perspective which means there is a slight limitation of the type of films they show since they aren’t allowed to be too negative or be above a certain age rating. Never the less it is still an example of how short films have progressed and continues to do so. And thanks to that support “Short Subjects” as they were once known have begun to make a powerful comeback, and for indie moviemakers the trend is getting harder to ignore. Not only are shorts gaining acceptance as a unique art form, commercial possibilities for shorts are better than they've been in decades. Cable television networks are increasingly receptive to the short form, new film festivals devoted entirely to shorts are springing up. What's more, DVD is a potentially large market and various internet sites are fast emerging as viable short film outlets. More exposure means more potential for profit, and just this year several distributors have surfaced who specialize in the promotion of short films. It's literally been generations since makers of shorts have had this much support. And many filmmakers who would previously have waited until their budgets were "feature fat" are now considering the short format, as well. Shorts still serve their traditional purposes, of course. They're great calling cards, learning tools, and testing grounds for ideas and techniques. But for movie¬makers who have just made, or are thinking of making a short, aspirations are usually higher. They want their work to get seen, but these days they also want them to generate a bit of cash. Because shorts are so comparatively cheap to make. As more moviemakers, including some who have Academy Awards to their credit, turn to shorts, the competition promises to get increasingly fierce. Making the film takes courage but, as always, that's only half the battle. The glory comes in being able to crack the market. If you're working with a distributor of short films, like AtomFilms, Apollo Cinema, Forefront Films or Big Film Shorts, you can expect them to devise a marketing strategy aimed at the usual suspects-cable and network television, airlines, colleges, broadband, etc. What you may not know is that they'll also work to get you exposure over the internet, put together a promotional package including synopsis, bios, and pro¬duction stills, and will often help with a festival strategy.

A typical path for a high-quality short might go like this: First, major national and international cable channels (Sundance, Bravo, Encore, IFM, Canal Plus, Channel 4, The Independent Film Channel, Bravo, the newly launched Short TV, BBC, etc.), which will expect an exclusive license on the film for a period of one to three years. Simultaneously, short films can be broadcast on the internet and, in some cases, the cable channel will allow licensing the film to a venue such as an airline. Companies also license short films for video and DVD compilations (Short Cinema Journal by Polygram is a leader), or sell them to various other secondary exhibition venues. Essentially, you can expect these distributors to work to sell your short and have it shown anywhere possible, worldwide. After the first license expires, the distributor can then take your film to regional programmers, where the contracts are typically not exclusive. Beginning the hunt for a distributor for short homework. Familiarize yourself with the outlets each typ¬ically sells to. Can you name some of the films they've acquired? Does yours fit the bill? Be sure you have a clear idea of the aes¬thetics you need to achieve to succeed in the marketplace. Short film distributors and the buyers are very selective, so the more infor¬mation the better prepared you'll be. Watching the Sundance Channel, IFC and ShortTV which broadcasts short film and can let a producer know if it will be suitable for a particular outlet and will also help in understanding the marketing strategy a distributor develops, and will help make an intelligent assessment of sources of royalties.

The four major short distributors mentioned above are beginning to carve out niches for themselves. Forefront Films has been licensing shorts since 1992, and as such was the first American company to spe¬cialize in licensing shorts around the world. Forefront generally acquires 15 shorts a year and currently has close to 120 in its library. Its "goal in representing short films is twofold-to promote and license shorts for sales around the world, and to develop relationships with talented film makers to produce feature films, and to manage their careers," says Harold Warren, president of Forefront.

Ian Curtis Hanging Scene In The Film Closer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSQuOZug7TU
This link is to a video which shows the hanging of the Joy Division singer in the film Closer. The hanging is from 3:49 onwards.

Psychological Thrillers And The Directors

Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese



The story of a street nobody who dreams of becoming a somebody heavily refelects on the subjects of isolationism and how lonliness can drastically affect a persons character and sometimes even drive them to make extreme life changing decisions for better or for worse.

This is a subject that we'd like to portray but in a more modern background in a media and digital age. Hopefully displaying how little human society has advnaced in terms of social issues inbstead of trying to solve them they have only exassibated the problem by bombarding an individual with media advetisements and productions that can sometimes make a person believe thats all there is in life causing their own social interactions to dwindle. Usually this can go on for years but they always eventually realise what they have done which can lead them to make a drastic decision which is something I want to portray in this project by taking the idea of extreme lonliness and isolation and placing it in the modern world and show how a character can react to such a situation. This can also be seen as an educational (shock treatment) film bring to lihgt a problem that people seem happy to ignoresince with the issue being shown as real and still a problem to this day.

Se7en - David Fincher

In terms of atmosphere and effect Se7en seems to show how important these can be in a psychological film, they can set the mood for the audience, create tension and tell an otherwise complex story in a simple way the audience can understand and even be entertained by.

What I want to take from thsi is how the director set up certain situations and how the characters react to them through; lighting, movements, sound effects and dialogue. Beinf a film lacking in much action that means it must be drtiven along on its atmosphere since the dialogue is short and often quite normal since the characters talk about regular things that could happen to anyone (this is outside of the actual murder investigation oiffcourse). Kevin Spacey's protrayel of a disturbed but somewhat polite serial killer will also help in creating the main protagonists personality since we want him to appear mentally unusual but on the outside appear normal if alittle reserved.

Fight Club - David Fincher

Fight Club is another film tht realise heavily on atmosphere and dialogue in order to sell it since (depsite the films title) there aren't many thriller or action based scenes featured which means it had to rely on other methods to sell the film.

This film introduced the idea of "voice-overs" since this is a sure way to represent a character as being slightly unusual since he chooses to speak in his head instead of with his voice which mean that he says something but the people around him don't know what he's saying (or rather what he's thinking). Also the idea of a plot twist which has been happoening since the beginning also inspired me to try and intergrate something similiar in thsi project, to have the story run from start to finish with a plot twist occuring throughout but only becoming visiable to the audience at the end.

Not only that but this film introduces the idea of two realities crossing together to effect the characters i.e. Tyler is an imagination created by the main character but dispite this he still drives the plot and effects both the protagonist and the viewer which at first isn't clear until the end when it appears as though Tyler was acting through the protagonist and that it was really him all along affecting everyone. While this can be complicated I'd still like to put something similiar into the film of something fictional or supernatural coming across and affecting the characters and plot in a way that can confuse and disorientate but ultimatley becomes clear at the end.

Questionnaire

The following is our questionnaire we created to find out the public's opinions and ideas about films in general, and about our specific genre for our film.

1. Are you male or female?

Male
Female

2. What age group are you?

Under 12's
13-16
17-21
22-35
36-50
Over 50

3. Do you watch films regularly?

Yes
Sometimes
Not a lot
Never

4. What genre is most appealing to you?

Comedy
Action
Thriller
Psychological
Horror
Sport
Drama
If other, please state:




5. What makes you want to go watch a certain movies ?

Big-name actors
Trailer and storyline
Director
Company producing it
Other
If other please state:




6. Do you like watching small budget films?

Yes
No
If no please state why:

7. Do you like watching Short Films ?

Yes
No
Maybe

8. Where would you expect to find Short Films ?




9. What would entice you to watch a Short Film




10. Have you seen any of the following films ?

Shutter Island
Pi
The Ring
Control
The Village

11. If you’ve seen any of the above ?

What did you like about it




What did you hate about it




What would you do differently




12. Would you ever go see a Psychological Horror movie?

Yes
Maybe
No
If no, why?

12. What kind of music would you expect to see in this sort of movie ?




13. What would you expect to see in that kind of movie ?




14. Would the title sequence of a film effect you opinion of it ?




15. How would you expect that type of film to be marketed and presented ?



.

Film Set Ideas

Ideas For Car Park:
1. We are wanting something like an inside car park as it adds more atmosphere to the scene and adds to the film. We are going to film this at Alexander Martin's car park outside his flat.







Ideas For Office space/Cubicle:
1. Using a real office to give the effect that it is a real office and we are wanting to add a few extras to give the idea that the main character is at work, and to use the added sound of people away at working, tapping keyboards and having a chat between each other.
2. Using a room at college as if each office worker has a separate room, this will be easier to film and edit as the sound will just come from the main character and it will not have anybody else to add sound to the scene/background noise.








Ideas For Flat:
1. Our idea is to have the flat being a dark place/ ideal for what the main character would like the room to be for his viewing pleasure. It would be relevant to have a little lamp in the scene as he writes his review so he would need some light to see what he is doing. The place we want to film the flat at is, Alexander Martin's flat.
2. If failing that another idea is to use a room in someones house and move things into that room that we would like in the scene for instance a chair/sofa, a lamp, a TV set and various different items that are key to the scene.