The demographic for my short film “LIMBO” is high school students like me who enjoy psychological thrillers and dystopian films that make them think deeply about the issues presented. It may also appeal to viewers interested in symbolism and surreal storytelling. I encoded these elements throughout the film’s unconventional narrative structure, which allows the audience to interpret the meaning of the events rather than having a straightforward explanation. This was a key factor in building my storyboard because I wanted LIMBO to reflect the confusion young people feel as they develop their own sense of identity. LIMBO also explores wider social issues about government control. I used the exaggerated dystopian setting to change these issues visually into the narrative, allowing the film to explore how a collective can influence a person’s individuality.
In Limbo, I decided to represent control as an issue that can affect people across different social groups, rather than limiting it to a particular demographic. I deliberately included a businessperson, a child, and two brothers to create a diverse range of characters living in the same oppressive society in my fictional world. Even though their ages and situations are different from each other, they are all under the same surveillance, which then suggests that control can affect people no matter their position in society. The character “The worker” represents an adult who has integrated into the system, while on the other hand, the character of “The child” represents how these systems can influence an individual at an early age. This was important because I wanted to point out that the younger generation can be especially vulnerable to the opinions of others, which can influence them. The age of 13-18 is a period where young people are developing their own identities and are trying to establish their own independence, so placing a child in a highly controlled environment helped me to create an exaggeration of the conflict between being yourself and also trying to fit in. Furthermore, I supported this idea through the visual designs of the characters. I purposefully made the designs of the child and the worker faceless, which represents the loss of individuality caused by the system that they are in. By removing their facial features, I prevented the audience from seeing them as having different personalities and instead presented them as an undefined object placed in a large system. This also largely contrasts with the two brothers, as they have visible faces; I chose to design the two characters like this because they recognise the system is oppressing them and are actively resisting it. The visual distinction allows me to communicate to the audience that conformity might result in you losing yourself. However, I also wanted the faceless characters to not become a passive representation of oppression, as their acceptance of the system suggests how surveillance becomes normality when people are surrounded by it in their day-to-day life.
The elements of my production work together to create a consistent sense of branding by using recurring visual conventions in my major task as well as minor tasks, which included a postcard advertisement and an Instagram account. I wanted the branding of “Limbo” to reflect the unsettling atmosphere of the film and communicate the themes of surveillance before the audience watches it. One of the main strategies I used was using a distinctive colour palette. Throughout the short film, I used highly saturated colours such as bright blue and red, particularly in the backgrounds of each scene, making the character stand out by bringing the audience’s attention away from what is going on behind the characters, as it is a character-driven narrative. Overall, this helps to create an overwhelming environment for the characters. Although these colours are visually bright, I used them in an unsettling way rather than making the film feel overly cheerful. The juxtaposition between the vibrant colours and subject matter creates a sense that something is wrong within the world in “Limbo.” This is a big part of the identity of the film. This visual style continued to my postcard advertisement so that the promotional material can be immediately associated with the film’s branding. Rather than using a film still, I drew a composition featuring the four characters being connected by black lines from ‘Something above,’ reflecting the film’s theme of control, as the characters are physically controlled by an unseen force. I also used bright blue and orange around the characters of the two brothers, making them stand out against the black and grey in the postcard. These elements combined have helped me reproduce the unsettling combination of vibrant colours and darker themes established in the film. My Instagram account extends this branding to a social media environment. I found that this is the best way for promoting my short film, as the community I want to target is mainly active on Instagram, but social media is a completely different format from the film, so I struggled to think how the same identity could still be recognisable when it is separated from moving pictures. But by maintaining the same colour and graphic conventions I used, such as glitch effects creates a connection between the Instagram account and its promotional campaign.
My product engages with the audience by creating curiosity and urging them to interpret the meaning behind the visuals and the narrative of “Limbo”. The film’s narrative is very thought-provoking, with symbolism throughout that requires the audience to think beyond what is simply presented in the film. For example, the faceless child and worker represent acceptance of the system, while the two brothers’ visible faces represent resistance to it. I want the audience to question why these characters are designed differently rather than having an explanation which makes the audience passive in their own understanding of the film, as they develop their own interpretations. I also used strong emotional engagement to create a connection between the characters and the audience. Even though my film focuses on issues of government control, I want the audience to ‘personally’ experience this, which is important near the end of the film, where the emotional scene at the funeral occurs very suddenly. This contrasts greatly with the unsettling atmosphere at the start of my film; I decided to use this because the sudden change in emotions will feel more impactful to the audience. Furthermore, my target audience is teens and young adults, which I took into consideration when developing the narrative and the visual style. As an 18-year-old myself, I want the film to reflect my confusion surrounding identity and the pressure to fit in, which I explored through psychological thriller conventions of unanswered questions. The unusual bright colours and distorted images are visually appealing to my target audience, especially as these are trends I have seen on social media apps like Instagram and X, which is generally where teens and young adults are active.
My research helped me understand the conventions of avant-garde films and psychological thrillers, especially their use of surreal imagery, symbolism, ambiguity and unconventional narrative structures. Films such as Battle Royale and Niccolò influenced my approach to these conventions, which I adapted rather than directly copying them. I also researched different animation styles for inspiration, such as “Au revoir mon monde”, particularly its use of surreal imagery, which led me to decide to make “LIMBO” less straightforward. I also researched films with a similar colour scheme to mine to understand how different colours could create mood for the audience. This later influenced my use of bright blue and red through my short film, as I wanted to create an unsettling atmosphere; it was successful because when I asked some of my classmates, all of them said it gave them a sense of uneasiness. I then used these conventions al throughout my postcard advertisement and Instagram account to create a consistent visual identity across all my products. My research has also helped me to understand the expectations of my target audience: teens and young adults who enjoy psychological thrillers usually want something that they have to think about instead of having the answers given straightforwardly to them, so I used a lot of symbolism and avoided the straightforward narrative of many thriller films; instead, I allowed the audience to piece together the meaning themselves. I showed parts of my work to my peers every week to see whether they understood the main ideas, whilst the rest could be up for interpretation. Their feedback has helped me to find which parts of my story were too unclear, which allowed me to make changes quickly and fix this issue.
Overall, Limbo was a very challenging project that pushed me to experiment with unconventional storytelling styles as well as a very strong visual style. Even though I had difficulties balancing symbolism and audience understanding, I developed a production package that combines the short film, postcard advertisement and Instagram account into a consistent visual identity. Resulting in a thought-provoking and visually distinctive film.