Evaluation

1.       In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

   The idea of the film is about behaviour of hands throughout the day. This whole film represents people by hands, their feelings etc. This film consists of six parts and we see each hero in those parts individually. Those parts are: morning, lessons, library, in the house eating, supper and final one is them dating. The narrative of the film tries to tell the audience about love; first we see that those two heroes are completely opposite of each other, next in the end of the film we see that they finally got together which might represent that even though they are so different they still can be in love, and in the very last scene we see those two people thinking that each one took over another one, (girl thinks: ‘he is my victim’) and (the boy thinks: ‘she is my treasure’). This represents that in the end there is no love as those people just wanted to take over of each other, probably just to have some sort of sexual relationship. This might challenge the audience to be interesded or think of the idea and in my opinion might be applied to the time today.

   My target audience in the beginning was people in age from 12 to 22, which is mostly a teenager. From my research there were more teenage people therefore my film was going to be based on this audience. Also about thirty percent of people voted for comedy based film this is largest percent of people who answered, so my film has to be ‘funny’ to match the audience’s will. Therefore my film should look funny, in some way as well. One of my questions was whether people do watch film magazines; my magazine page should look decent enough to be a good advertisement for my film. Also film should be short enough so that it can be easily be uploaded to the internet source such as www.YouTube.com if needed. The fact that a film poster play’s a large role in the promotion of the film, I had to make a good film poster so that it can promote itself.

   The real media examples I looked at were: some short films, film reviews and film posters which could be founded on my blog or down below in the text (films: ‘one hundredth of a second’, ‘the black hole’ and ‘offside’). ‘One hundredth of a second’ is quite depressing film with a sad end. In this film the point of interest for me was the actual narrative of the film, I have tried to recreate this in my short film. The end of this film was a quite unexpectable as in the beginning we would think that woman will save the girl and so on, but in the middle of the film we saw the opposite of that, and eventually we saw the girl dead. In case of my film we see focus only on two people throughout the film, and we obviously are expecting them to come together in some way, in the end we see them dating; audience get what it wants (i.e. they get together), but in the very end we see that they are not loving each other but actually, using each other. The same happens in the ‘One Hundreds of a Second’ film first we see war and the journalist and expect her to save the girl, then we see the girl, and in the end we see that woman did not help the girl, which has died. this could be seen as humans vice, as in ‘One Hundreds of a second woman’ wants to become rich and in my short film boy and girl just want to use each other.

   The second film that I was looking at, was pretty much similar to the first one, to the ‘human behaviour’ and more sort of selfishness. The guy in the film was greedy, therefore it was film about bad guy with some sort of mystique as well. Codes and conventions of this genre in terms of colours are: grey and blue, those are quite cold colours, which might be thoughgt as cold and scary (not by them selves) but within the other helping props in the scene. There are quite a lot of medium shots on some props in the film, probably to make them look more mysterious especially in the cold blue and grey colours, surrounding the prop, quiteness in the film gives to some objects misterious look. The use of sound in this kind of genre has to be very odd. In this case there was an diegetic sound of printer, but in the film this sound was very loud especially in the end. This was probably to represent that there is so quite and mistique in the room that even printer sound very mysterious and loud. Also in the end printer sounds even louder while camera moves away from the money locker where the man been caught, this in the first place represents that as further you get from the locker than less you can hear man in the locker, this looks quite scary/disturbing. In my film also sound was used, but as the film is not in the same genre as ‘Black Hole’ it had to lie in within the right genre, therefore I chose some kind of retro happy music as non diegetic sound to give to the film kind of comedian mood.

    Codes and conventions include in them selves camera work/edit pase, music, narrative, props and FX. all those will create the film within its genre and style. in the third film that I was deconstructing; ‘Offside’. In this film the most powerful part was its dietetic sounds, the sound of radio football translation was very ironic, as it was going along with war-time and four people pointing guns at each other waiting for something; either go away in piece or shooting each other. The same ironic effect I have tried to apply to my short film in the end when we see those writings with: ‘she is my ‘treasure’, ‘he is my victim’ but using different codes and conventions such as editing as clouds with words are part of edditing. We would like them to get on with each other and in the end we see the love sign and the story is seemed to be complete, but then we see those signs and we think of a false feelings, the same as there is a false game of soldiers when they die, as the man in the radio say that there was offside in the game but there are no offsides in the real life, and those soldiers are dead for ever. Camera work was jumping from one man to another and we saw their emotions on their faces this makes the audience be intrigued to the film. Im my film I have tried to play with camera work as well, a lot of different angles were used, video effects and edding pase to keep audience watching the film. Also the narrative of the film makes audience curious as those soldiers, even if they are in the opposite side to each other, they still interested in the same things, and whether they are going to kill each other or not makes its intriguing as well.

‘One Hundredth of a Second’:

‘The Black hole’:

‘Offside’:

   I learned that all media work have different codes and conventions. Theme of the media work is created by combining colours, sounds, editing, props, language used; which all related to genre. For example, for making a comedy short film I would not use lots of black tone in film poster unless its ‘dark humour’. Languages in different media genres are all different in other words each genre uses separate style of language (especially music videos and games). Props; this is one of the most important parts as by looking at clothes and other props in video or magazine we can see the style of product straight away, as a stereotypes were created in time now they have been used in codes and conventions; long loose jeans hoodies and baseball caps remind the audience of Hip-hop, so the use of those would be known as codes of conventions. Camerawork and editing is also related as people would think of someone in the shot different by the way shot is taken; from low angle would show someone as big and powerful high or birds eye shot would mean that person in the shot is not needed within the narrative.

   First of all I made it really obvious in the beginning of the film where the boy and where the girl is. By separating their rooms, so that we understand that there will be two oppositions throughout the film Those oppositions are also devided by colours boy is in black in white to represent his toughness and girl is shown in bright colour;

Boy:

Girl:

Audience will probably understand that film will be about some kind of love or hate scene in the beginning as a boy and the girl in the scene can only suggest that, which makes this film fall within the drama, love relationship genre. The other hint to the audience is that I showed the sunrise in the beginning, this hopefully will challenge audience to think that without the sunrise there is going to be no sun set, and therefore audience will think that this film is going to be about the whole day. Another hint to the audience of time set of the film is its film poster. On the film poster heading tells that film is probably about the whole day ’The Film of the Day’ and a photo of alarm clock is placed as a background will remind of the day even more. To conclude; people who are interested in drama and some kind of love or hate films will be motivated to buy/watch this film.

Print Elements (Film Poster, DPS)

   Print works are all simple and bold, they all used in different styles as for example credits on the bottom are written in compact way, to give it a bit of Hollywood ’credits’ look. Colours of my film poster do not really represent the genre of the film; all those colours are more related to the photo. As this film is abstract, an abstract background was chosen, – a shot of clock from the film. As that clock are seen in the film. Therefore colours of the poster are mostly red and black.  As black seem to be a pair colour with red, and red matches to the colour of clocks. The aim was to make poster unusual and confusing as there is no particular film genre that my film applies to, except some kind of drama. There is a repeating of the poster heading all over the page, reason to that is to give the poster funny look, which later on could tell the audience that film is some sort of comedy as well. The reason for film name was ‘The Film of the Day’ because the film itself is dedicated to one day from teenagers’ life. The reason for clock on the ground is to match the unusual genre of the film. This will probably make my TA a bit more interested in the film as clock on the grass/ground is something that you do not usually see. Also clock on the ground could represent that those two people were not loving each other, so this could be a symbol of lost time in some case.

   Reason for making two people walking away from the camera on the double page spread photo is to intrigue the potential target audience. As if they look at this photo they will probably think why those two holding each other hands, and why we can not see their faces, and why the film called the film of the day and we see those two people holding hands, are they in love and so on. Those sort of questions are appearing in my head if I look at this picture.

   Fonts in any media work are important and should represent the meaning/purpose of it. For example I did not choose a Goth style for a particular reason: it is not a scary film or any sort of old-fashioned etc. Fonts that I chose were pretty simple everyday fonts that are used in newspapers (not necessarily ‘The Times’), magazines etc. This font is basic to represent the basic life of those two people in the film. 

Moving Image

    I think that the style, form and content of my media product affected my TA in the right way. Audience will tell that film is about two people after first minute of watching, when we see both of them, dressing up etc.

   I did use some kind of traditional conventions like love theme which is traditionally drama, boy is untidy, girl is blond and this makes us think that she is kind, lovely and tidy. Girl has a lot of pink stuff which makes her really girly.

   The narrative goes throughout the film, we see the purpose of the whole idea in the film in the end, which makes the film has narrative which found out in the end of the film. Or we could say that there are two narratives in the film. First is when we see love in near the end bit off the film, and the second narrative which completely breakes the first one, which tells that there is no love except sexual relationship or lieing to each other.

First narrative:

Second overcoming narrative:

   The subject in my film represented by two people, who love each other, this portrays the whole theme of the film. The main point in the film is when those two people in the end look like they have overtaken on each other, they seem to look as they got the trophy, and when we see that, we think of them as silly, this what is making them portraying the subject and the theme of the film.

   There is a very good intertextual element in the film. When the girl browsing ‘Facebook’ in her free time, this intertextual element tells the audience that this all is happening in the modern times, and that those people are in the reality, ‘just the same as us’. This could bring the audience a bit closer to the film, which could be good as representing the TA in the film in any ways will probably make film more applicable/closer to my TA therefore, audience might enjoy it more. There were the some intertextual elements with the boy when he is trying to chat on ‘Facebook’ and some  SMS messaging, but unfortunately the quality of the video does not allow us to see what is on the screen, therefore this intersexual element can not be applicable. Also the boy uses Google in one of the scenes this counts exactly the same as Facebook with scene with a girl.

Facebook (Girl):

Facebook/SMS (Boy):

Google (Boy):

   The representation of the boy for example, in the very first scene with an establishing shot in the beginning there is a representation of the boy as an untidy person by showing the audience his untidy room. We think straight away that the boy is unorganised, which usually applied to the teenager behaviour. Also the sign with throwing clock on the floor in a rush probably makes us think that he has overslept and that he is late for something the sign in the cloud helps the audience to understand that straight away, so that audience can fucus on next shots of the film. Throwing clock on the floor makes us think that boy is unorganised as well; therefore we can certainly say that this is typical teenager representation.

   The representation of the girl happes completely opposite; we see her on time and flowers also give us a hint that she is having a good morning, also there is a cloud which tells us that she is on time therefore her morning can not be bad.

   The main narrative theory that I was looking up to, was Lewis Straus’s theory with binary oppositions. I made boy and girl to look completely different to each other to represent the difference between them and to show in the end that this difference is not what we got used to think it is, there is a difference but in other way of the men and woman relationships.

2.       How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts.

   In case of the film poster, the only thing which compliments it with film is clock on its’ background. The colour scheme seems to be a bit different to the film. The only colour which possibly matches the theme of the film is red, as usually red as well as pink and similar warm colours represent love themes as in St. Valentine’s Day. Photo on the background is not a shot from the film, it is more sort of hint to the audience what he/she will see in the film, also the fact that the shot is not from the film will make audience wonder why its there and will intrigue the potential audience.

      In terms of double page spread/magazine review, it looks different due to the fact that usually reviews are written by the third-party not necessarily by different company but by different people (Horisontal & vertical integration), not by the people who have done the actual media work. Photo on the DPS in my opinion is quite attractive and probably will make the audience see the film, the fact that people go away interests people. There is synergy with the film as the way that people are walking away make us think of the narrative in the film, especially when there is a name of the magazine underneath the photo. This photo looks quite unusual as it does not tell the genre of film straight away, as an example of this; if you buy a street racer movie of some sort you will obviously see some cars in there and a tattooed men (probably). With the drama you will probably see some pink colours and girls flowers etc. in case of my film even thought it is some kind of drama there is no pink, and colours have been changed which should confuse and intrigue my TA. The text is also based around that scene, by explaining the narrative up to the end, but without opening to the audience what is actually going to happen. In my opinion audience will be intrigued by the content of the poster and review page, which will encourage them to actually see the film. The genre/style is not evident because the genre of film is uncertain. The other thing which might be placed within the synergy of three pieces of work together is pull quotes in the DPS, some of those pull quotes mentioned that style of genre of the film is changed to something more modern, on the other pull quote it says that the film is very unusual, I thought that this might intrigue the audience and make them want to watch the film.

   Branding of my film does relate to the theme, which is the day of two people making a date, the film name sounds like a name of a traditional folk tale, this bring the film closer to everyday life and in the same time to TA. In my opinion the overall graphics and style of all products does match each other in their own particular way. Everything fells within the conventions of the drama genre but with a little changing the genre in its idea and camerawork which makes it a bit abstract.

   I cannot really say if my film would be sold in the shops as a real piece of media, but all my media pieces are telling the audience what the film is about (approximately). Also fans of this film are uncertain, but as I target they should be/classified in a certain age rather than by interest of the audience. The codes of conventions can be recognised easily by having a love theme and man and woman dating in the film, eventhough my film does not really has any genre.

3.       What I have learned from my audience feedback.

   My target audience was between ages fifteen to twenty-five, possibly. The gender of the film could be both but this media project was mostly dedicated to female target audience. Occupation of my TA could be any or some kind of youth jobs especially. An unofficial hobby of my target audience may be changing their sexual partners, as the film has this content which we find out in the end of the film. The technology usage is quite important as in my film, as boy and girl use phones and computers, which nowadays a slight proportion of young people has, and by looking at usage of those technologies my TA could enjoy or apply themselves to this film more. Social activities could be social websites like ‘www.facebook.com’ as we see the girl uses it in one parts of the film.

   Post production questionnaire review:

1.   Would you recommend this to a friend?

All people who I have asked would like to recommend this to their friends, therefore I may tell that idea of this film was succeeded, film will be watched and will go to the masses.

2.   What did you like the most?

Most people liked the camera work, which is good, this could keep them interested in the film as well as the idea which people liked the most as well. Sound was on third place, this tells me that music for the film was chosen in the right way.

3.   What could be improved?

4.   Was the genre obvious through the graphics of poster?

 

As the genre of the film is some kind of abstract drama, film poster could not be made clearly within the genre, but most people think that poster does matches to the film and represents it in the way, also this could be because I’ve placed some hints like pinkish-red colour texts on the poster and by placing there an alarm clock which is in the same colour which lay on the grass, which might represent nature and as a consequence give us a hint of love. As love is sometimes represented like nature.

5.   Did the print work have synergy with the video work?

Most people said that my print work did have synergy with the video. Which means that by looking at magazine review or magazine poster they understand that it is about my film.

6.   Was the narrative obvious in the video – why? Why not?

Most people said that narrative in the film was quite obvious, especially in the end when girl and boy finally made a date.

7.   Did the film keep you interested throughout? – Why?

Most of the people I’ve asked mentioned that film interested them throughout; therefore I can say that my film was engaging enough and it can keep audience excited as a real media work. Some people said that it was interesting what is going to happen in the end, were interested in the narrative. Some people were more interested in the camera work. Also some people were disappointed as said that it takes a while to get the idea; this might be the lack of representing/hint shots without which audience did not understand the film.

8.   How would you describe my film?

Most people described the film as good-looking and that it contains some narrative. Only three people did not like it, this tells me that overall this film suited my target audience.

9.   How would you rate it in scale out of 10?

   Most people think of this film on average from 6 to 8. This means that this film in the end was decent enough to watch, and my audience enjoyed the film. Very small percent said that film was from 1 to 3, this might be taken in consideration if audience was within this genre. i.e. wanted to see it and was unsatisfied.

   My film does attract the right audience, as I mentioned before that film should suit the audience not by the genre but by age, the feedback group and people from questionnaire were between age 12 to 22, and in their feedback most of them stated that they enjoyed the film. Therefore this tells me that my aim to attract the right audience was reached. The reason why my film attracts the audience is because camerawork and some people also mentioned the music. This explains in what was my TA was attracted to the film.

   In my pre-production questionnaire, TA stated that their most favourite film genre would be comedy and drama, so in my case film does match to this audience demand. The expectancy of my target audience was the ability to watch this film on the social networking sites. In theory this is possible so I may say that this criteria has been met. People would like to see films online and discuss them in those social networking sites as well. In theory this could be met but  I can not load the film on to the social networking sites such as Facebook or YouTube because I do not have rights to post the video that contains music of an artist with copyright. If the allowance would be done towards my short film in real, not just by ‘theoretical sent letter’ it would be placed onto the social networking sites and video streaming sites such as YouTube.

   The use of film poster was also vital, as most people from pre-production questionnaire stated that they do look at posters, so in theory I would place my film poster in places like: underground and streets as those were chosen as most common place where my TA would like to see film posters.

   As well as Poll Daddies questionnaire I also had an in class film preview/feedback group preview to get some more detailed additional film feedback. In my opinion it will be very vital for the evaluation essay and  any future work such as this one.

   Some people said that sound track that I used for my film was repeated twice, and that it was not a good idea. This gave the audience a confusion with music video. People also stated that narrative was not clear. I completely agree to this state, as there were not a lot of people who got the meaning in the end of the film. This could happen to the lack of the shots that would explain the idea and the progress in the film. To make the film better I could add some more shots of girl and boy texting the phone to each other, and also make those shots intersect with each other more often and obvious, so that audience think that those two are texting each other. And the fact that in the end they are together would mean that they made each other to get on a date, than we would see that each of them made it in the sexual interests only.

   People also said that my camera work with a big variety of shots was good. I am glad to have this feedback, as this would mean that my camerawork was decent enough for the audience to watch it.

   Also some of my feedback group said that I had an excellent use of the binary oppositions in the film, It is true as I was based on the idea of Levi Strauss narrative theory. My feedback group stated that this was very clear that those people were completely opposite to each other but in the end still got together. This is good as I can say that at this point at least half of film idea was reached.

   Coming back to music; some people said that music was actually very good in the beginning despite the fact that it was too much of it eventually, It was stated that music was chosen in the right way, as it just gave the first impression of the film. Film supposed to look lovely and sunny, And I have reached this by pasting a happy retro/jass music. Also some irony was included, with some explosion shots in the film, in scene with boy waking up in the beginning of the film.

   Back to the editing and camerawork, my feedback group told me that there was not enough of editing in the film such as: more cross cutting scenes between the boy and the girl. I do agree to this state, as in my opinion I think as well that scenes changing between boy and girl should have been more frequent, but the overall idea was understood with the kind of crosscutting/editing I had in the film.

   My film represented my TA in it by having there actors about the same age as my audience would be, also the use of the intertextual elements such as Facebook which was used in the film by girl, this could bring my TA closer to the film. As a majority of people at that age do use those technologies. Also the actual fact that the whole film happens in the school makes my TA be closer the film/being represented in it, as people of that age are usually in the school.

4.       How I used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.

   I used two types of graphic applications for creating all my still image media work. For film poster I used ‘Photoshop’ and for DPS I used ‘adobe Indesign’. All those programs were made for specific use, ‘adobe Indesign’ was designed to make some magazine pages etc. and ‘Photoshop’ was designed to work with photo. For my film I used video editing software which called: iMovie maker and ‘Final Cut Pro’ software, which all specify only on video editing. I found those programs very useful. For storing the whole project in one place and allowing me to sort the information I used web service www.wordpress.com which also was vitally important to my project. Camera and tripod was used to film stuff, especially useful I found tripod as it was used to film the sunrise, which took me about two hours.

   The very useful part in ‘wordpress’ was the fact that all information is stored online and accessible from all home, school etc. It also allows me to be confident about my work as brake downs with internet servers are less common than brake downs of personal computers. Another technology such as ‘Photoshop’ allowed me to play with graphics for a bit to reach the results needed. In ‘adobe Indesign’ was really useful to work with text as layers in ‘Indesign’ are easier to pick than in ‘Photoshop’.

   WordPress helped me in organising the whole A-level work, all research is posted through polls and all research reviews are in the main page. Also I had chance to organise everything in themes/groups which works well, and now everything can be found very easily. The bit which was really helpful is polls as to find information I did not have to go around and ask people personally. This saved me a lot of time. The WordPress could be really useful to the some independent media producers, as you can share, update and comment on the work which has been produced instantly. If I would have a partner information between us would be read very quickly therefore more time would be saved. Also the use of ‘Poll daddies’ I found extremely useful as it saved me an enormous time of my coursework, instead of going arround with paper and ticking the boxes and then to count up the votes, nowadays technologies made it so much quicker and this also helps to be an independent media producer.

   The use of internet was necessarily to seek information there, as all media is closely related to internet. Internet was also useful to look at some real media examples of media such as video, photo, music etc. Also I watched TV quite a lot to help me with my skills of how to edit the video and how the camera work is used etc. In addition to TV some real magazines were looked at to be inspired by them and to get some good-looking colour schemes. Also the use of the ‘youtube’ is really helpful because as soon as  I upload the film in there it will reach audience very quickly, in the olden days it was much more difficult to distribute self-made media product as I would have to record it on the CD’s and give a copy to everyone, as an example. Audience can be reached globally now, this is one of the biggest things that technologies allowed us these days.

   The technologies could be used more effectively if it would not be the first time I used it. Some time was spent to learn the technology before a creation of media work was done.

   Due to the new technologies organisations now are able to spread the information of their products more effectively through internet, either free or other services which require payments, internet is very useful as it reaches to very big amount of TA very quickly and globally which is vitally important. The specified sources could be www.youtube.com and other video streaming websites. There are also other ways to advertise the products such as: music streaming internet sources, other websites which place some advertisement on their websites, but either music streaming services and other websites may require money for posting promotion on their websites.

   In my case internet helped me to promote my media products on free sources like ‘wordpress’ and ‘youtube’ to place my short film. Technologies made me a media producer as well as media consumer.

A2 Short Film Post Production Questionnaire Polls can be found here: http://tagiev.wordpress.com/a2-short-film-post-production-questionnaire/

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