Friday, 13 May 2011
Monday, 14 February 2011
Evaluation
In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Camera
Camera
The use of camera in our short film followed the conventions. For example, a camera shot that is used to zoom out of the young girl’s eye and her face as she overhears her parents argument; this allows the audience to have a main focus of her facial expressions and further amplifies her feelings of her obvious unhappiness and uneasiness. We used framing to communicate the mothers long wait, a further camera shot used was the mum situated to the right side of the frame and the clock situated towards the left/behind on the frame, presenting the clock in the background. This illustrates the waiting, and time passing, which is a focal part in our film; this also helps to ignite pity and sympathy from the audience.
Narrative
The narrative structure of our short film challenges the conventional five part structure, including an exposition, development, complication, climax and the resolution. Our film ‘Torn’ follows this structure; however it doesn’t include a resolution and is instead left as ambiguous. The ambiguity of our film reflects its uniqueness and leaves the film open to different interpretations which lets the audience reflect and make up their own minds about the film and the ‘what happens next?’. Audience would typically expect a happy ending where everything is resolved, in this case tension is still presented, leaving ‘Torn’ unresolved due to the ambigious ending which leaves the mother and father looking at eachother and then looking away, leaving audiences to have their own interpretations of the future of the family.
Narrative
The narrative structure of our short film challenges the conventional five part structure, including an exposition, development, complication, climax and the resolution. Our film ‘Torn’ follows this structure; however it doesn’t include a resolution and is instead left as ambiguous. The ambiguity of our film reflects its uniqueness and leaves the film open to different interpretations which lets the audience reflect and make up their own minds about the film and the ‘what happens next?’. Audience would typically expect a happy ending where everything is resolved, in this case tension is still presented, leaving ‘Torn’ unresolved due to the ambigious ending which leaves the mother and father looking at eachother and then looking away, leaving audiences to have their own interpretations of the future of the family.
Sound
The soundtrack used in our film was called ‘make you feel my love’ by Adele. This followed the conventions of a film, as this song shows an obvious relation to the film through the missing/disrupted love in the family home and their struggles in their relationship; further presenting dramatic irony in the choice and lyrics of the soundtrack. This helps develop and echo the characters feelings, as the song is triggered by the dropping of the mum’s head, which shows her obvious distress and displaying the link to action. This convention further involves the audience into the plot of the film, evoking emotions, which is a sign of any good film, making the audience ‘feel’.
Mise en scene
We also followed the conventions on the use of Mise en scene in our short film. The costume of the young girl consisted of sheep pyjamas showing the young girl in an innocent light and is a typical costume of a girl of a young age in the evening in her family home. A main focal part was the prop of scissors; this is not a typical prop of a girl of a young age, producing uneasiness and maybe even danger. This develops the audience further and draws them further into the plot, as they want to see ‘what happens next’. We made the creative decision to have a sense of ‘warm’ lighting, signifying a warm family home, which is ironic due to the disruption in their family home, and is replaced with arguments and struggles.
The soundtrack used in our film was called ‘make you feel my love’ by Adele. This followed the conventions of a film, as this song shows an obvious relation to the film through the missing/disrupted love in the family home and their struggles in their relationship; further presenting dramatic irony in the choice and lyrics of the soundtrack. This helps develop and echo the characters feelings, as the song is triggered by the dropping of the mum’s head, which shows her obvious distress and displaying the link to action. This convention further involves the audience into the plot of the film, evoking emotions, which is a sign of any good film, making the audience ‘feel’.
Mise en scene
We also followed the conventions on the use of Mise en scene in our short film. The costume of the young girl consisted of sheep pyjamas showing the young girl in an innocent light and is a typical costume of a girl of a young age in the evening in her family home. A main focal part was the prop of scissors; this is not a typical prop of a girl of a young age, producing uneasiness and maybe even danger. This develops the audience further and draws them further into the plot, as they want to see ‘what happens next’. We made the creative decision to have a sense of ‘warm’ lighting, signifying a warm family home, which is ironic due to the disruption in their family home, and is replaced with arguments and struggles.
Editing
The use of editing further followed the conventions of a typical short film. Continuity editing is an important part of any film, as it presents a flow throughout, without disrupting the audience’s focus. An example of this was when we see the young girl run up the stairs and then see her at the top of stair from a different angle.
The use of cross cutting from characters illustrate to the audience of the feelings of isolation and suffering of each of the characters. We see two sides the story, and how the situation affects each character in a different way. Transitions used in ‘Torn’ are typically used in films, the fade out at the end of the film, does not represent a clean ending, this is also a symbolic way which is reflective of the lingering thoughts of the audience.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The use of editing further followed the conventions of a typical short film. Continuity editing is an important part of any film, as it presents a flow throughout, without disrupting the audience’s focus. An example of this was when we see the young girl run up the stairs and then see her at the top of stair from a different angle.
The use of cross cutting from characters illustrate to the audience of the feelings of isolation and suffering of each of the characters. We see two sides the story, and how the situation affects each character in a different way. Transitions used in ‘Torn’ are typically used in films, the fade out at the end of the film, does not represent a clean ending, this is also a symbolic way which is reflective of the lingering thoughts of the audience.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Ancillary Texts - Film Review and Film Poster
Image
Our ancillary texts reflect our film through the creative decisions we made to ensure the combination of our film, review and film poster produce a spark of interest to reach our target audience to watch, and enjoy our short independent film ‘Torn’. Our film poster consists of a main image of a young girl holding a pair of scissors. Her being situated in the centre of the poster, illustrates and symbolises her as the centre and heart of her family home, and may imply her significance in bringing her family back together from their struggles. The blurriness surrounding the young girl may reflect the feelings and thoughts of her uncertainty and unclear intentions throughout the film. I feel this image will appeal to our target audience due to it’s inclination of a potential dangerous or uneasy film or scenes due to the prop of scissors. I feel this will draw in our target audience, and this image will influence their decision whether or not to view our film. The lack of text on our poster further develops this, as the image of the young girl is the main focus on the poster. We aimed to keep a style of simplicity throughout our film review to reflect the simple reflectable narrative in 'Torn'. The narrative of our film, consists of an old age plot which consists of a family struggles. The simplicity of both the film poster and review present a flow and help establish a link.
Language
Our film poster used only the title, tagline and necessary functional information need to produce a professional film poster to be presented to our audience. This decision was made to follow the conventions of the magazine 'Little White Lies' as this was the direction we wanted to follow to show a combination of our ancillary texts and our film which further presented our film in a more professional light.This aspect may reflect our films lack of dialogue and plays a part in leaving the audience with their own interpretations on the film, the lack of information from text on our poster further illustrates this. We ensured the image provoked questions rather than simply informing. The language within our film review, consists of technical and critical language when accessing our film ‘Torn’. This appeals to our target audience as we feel that they would appreciate the technical aspects as they are genuine film lovers who particularly appreciate independent films like ours. However, although using critical language, it doesn’t prevent from being from both an informative and enjoying read. The language on the film review also consists of information of other relevant films, this aspect will also appeal to our target audience, as stated above who appreciate the art of film.
Colour
The colour scheme in both our ancillary texts consists of mainly black and white to reflect the simplicity of our film and to not ‘take away’ from the essence of both our film and our combination of texts, we left the simple colours to leave a sense of ambiguity regarding our film. A running theme throughout our film is the sense of mystery and unknowing, these choice of main colours further develop this, this mystery of ‘Torn’ is what may be a main aspect of interest and be highlighted in our main appeal. The simple style doesn’t distract from the readers from the technical language of our film review and the main focal point of focus of our main image of the young girl. We felt the black and white colour scheme of ‘Little White lies’ fitted our film perfectly for these reasons. The only colour present in from the main image situated at the top of the page, which leaves the focus and attention on the characters, which reflects the ‘Torn’ as it focuses of the characters lives behind closed doors, and this may further present our target audience to develop a relationship on a level of understanding.
Font
Our ancillary texts reflect our film through the creative decisions we made to ensure the combination of our film, review and film poster produce a spark of interest to reach our target audience to watch, and enjoy our short independent film ‘Torn’. Our film poster consists of a main image of a young girl holding a pair of scissors. Her being situated in the centre of the poster, illustrates and symbolises her as the centre and heart of her family home, and may imply her significance in bringing her family back together from their struggles. The blurriness surrounding the young girl may reflect the feelings and thoughts of her uncertainty and unclear intentions throughout the film. I feel this image will appeal to our target audience due to it’s inclination of a potential dangerous or uneasy film or scenes due to the prop of scissors. I feel this will draw in our target audience, and this image will influence their decision whether or not to view our film. The lack of text on our poster further develops this, as the image of the young girl is the main focus on the poster. We aimed to keep a style of simplicity throughout our film review to reflect the simple reflectable narrative in 'Torn'. The narrative of our film, consists of an old age plot which consists of a family struggles. The simplicity of both the film poster and review present a flow and help establish a link.
Language
Our film poster used only the title, tagline and necessary functional information need to produce a professional film poster to be presented to our audience. This decision was made to follow the conventions of the magazine 'Little White Lies' as this was the direction we wanted to follow to show a combination of our ancillary texts and our film which further presented our film in a more professional light.This aspect may reflect our films lack of dialogue and plays a part in leaving the audience with their own interpretations on the film, the lack of information from text on our poster further illustrates this. We ensured the image provoked questions rather than simply informing. The language within our film review, consists of technical and critical language when accessing our film ‘Torn’. This appeals to our target audience as we feel that they would appreciate the technical aspects as they are genuine film lovers who particularly appreciate independent films like ours. However, although using critical language, it doesn’t prevent from being from both an informative and enjoying read. The language on the film review also consists of information of other relevant films, this aspect will also appeal to our target audience, as stated above who appreciate the art of film.
Colour
The colour scheme in both our ancillary texts consists of mainly black and white to reflect the simplicity of our film and to not ‘take away’ from the essence of both our film and our combination of texts, we left the simple colours to leave a sense of ambiguity regarding our film. A running theme throughout our film is the sense of mystery and unknowing, these choice of main colours further develop this, this mystery of ‘Torn’ is what may be a main aspect of interest and be highlighted in our main appeal. The simple style doesn’t distract from the readers from the technical language of our film review and the main focal point of focus of our main image of the young girl. We felt the black and white colour scheme of ‘Little White lies’ fitted our film perfectly for these reasons. The only colour present in from the main image situated at the top of the page, which leaves the focus and attention on the characters, which reflects the ‘Torn’ as it focuses of the characters lives behind closed doors, and this may further present our target audience to develop a relationship on a level of understanding.
Font
The simplicity of our choice of fonts, such as 'script' further ensure that the main focal points are the image in our film poster and the text in our film review, not wanting to distract the audience and allowing a consistency throughout each ancillary text and our film. In following the style of ‘Little White Lies’ the simple font didn’t take away from the language or the image which leaves the film open to interpretations from our target audience. I feel that again, the simplicity present will appeal to the audience, and work well in order for the attention to be drawn in the places we wished.
How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?
Research and Planning
The use of the Internet was key in order for our research and planning to help craft our ancillary texts and our short film. In particular www.google.com was used in order to research into other magazines to help influence our decision of which style would best suit our film review. We further researched other film reviews from a variety of different magazines including Empire, FHM and Sight and sound. Upon analysing these magazines we were able to gain an understanding of what conventions are used and how they are used, which would influence our decision on what design conventions we would use in both our film and our ancillary texts and which style and language route we would aim to achieve, which would appeal and attract our decided target audience. On reflection of these magazines, it was clear that each magazine possessed different interpretation on reviews. We also used Google, to search for iconic film posters, and saw what conventions made them memorable and what worked for the audiences. These influenced our choice to have a majority of functional information and let the image speak for itself.The use of www.youtube.com was key for the research in to other short films, which enabled the understanding of what a short independent film has to offer and how they differ from Hollywood blockbuster films. Through research, short films such as ‘Letters of Service’ and ‘The Strangers’ struck a spark of interest through their lack of dialogue as this is a common convention of short films.The lack of speech allowed the openness to our own interpretations, and drew our attention into the film and the narrative. We decided in following in the footsteps of these short films, and allowed us to produce a short film which consisted of a lack of dialogue and left the audience with an ambiguous plot, I believe this was the right decision to ensure a influential film to our audience. This research and planning, helped the production of our short film, our film review and film poster in a professional light, and which work well with the audience.
Construction
We recorded our film footage, we used a HD Film Camera to shoot each scene. This technically advanced camera allowed us to produce good quality footage which we was happy to use in our short film. After we finished our filming, we then transferred our clips onto a program called Adobe Premiere Elements, which allowed us to edit each scene individual and then let us begin the process of putting our film together. We were able to cut and cross cuts several scenes to help illustrate our narrative in the way we wanted it to be perceived. In particular, the prgram allowed us to take the sound from one scene and transfer it to another scene, to further present the distress and upset on the young girl's face in reaction to her parents arguing. We were able to add a soundtrack (make you feel my love by Adele) to symbolise the feelings of lonliness and isolation amongst the characters and a soundtrack is a common factor in most films. This program allowed us to achieve and use conventions which are present in other short films. However, due to the size of the clips on the computer, this program was prone to freezing, and provided us with some difficulties, although we are aware that this project wouldn’t be ‘glitch free’.
Another technical program we used was Fireworks Macromedia, which was used in the production of our film poster. A blurriness tool was used around the main image of the young girl, this gave the impression of unclear and uncertain intentions, and ensures the main focal point is the young girl, as in the film she is the heart of the family home, and is potentially the person who holds them together. The sharpen tool, also helped progress our image by allowing us to sharpen the pixels surrounding the prop of scissors, showing a dramatic edge in highlighting the potential dangerous prop. This program allowed us to further develop our original ideas and inspiration of our film poster. Technical programmes are sometimes prone to problems, however I feel that overall they helped develop our product to the best of our ability.
Evaluation
During our evaluation stages, we used a blog to identify and access our final production of 'Torn' with the combination of both a film poster and a film review. Using a blog allowed me to be make more creative and enabled me to use videos clips and images to illustrate the creative decisions made to produce our final product through a more interactive and visual dynamic. Using the blog is typical to use during our current technological advances, this more inventive way of disputing and discussing our ideas and creative decisions was more enjoyable and interesting that a typical straight essay. It made our group work easier,due to copying ,and pasting and easier file sharing between each person in our groups. Using a blog allowed us to act quickly when we thought of creative ideas, as we could write and record them down on the blog at any time, due to its easy access not just at school but at home.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When gathering audience feedback we distributed a questionnaire to a large group of students with a variety of ages from 11- 16 who had seen our short film so that we could easily assess how our film had been perceived by our audience. When asked whether they liked our short film, the majority of our audience answered that they did like our film, this is obviously a good result for us, as the audience is key in a film’s success.
What Genre Do You Think The Film Is?
Our audience feedback revealed that the majority understood the genre we aimed to base our film on was ‘Drama’. Some commented that it was "based on real life", this is what we aimed to succeed. We wanted to present the realistic view of what goes on ‘behind closed doors’, and this situation would be relatable; both as a child seeing their parents argue and being at the centre of family issues, and as a parent who is experiencing family struggles.
What Is The Film About and Could You Follow The Plot Easily?
Looking at our feedback sheets, In particular our film appealed to the younger students of the group we accessed, I feel this constituted from the flow of the plot and our narrative was simple and relatable. The females also understood the plot in more detail, as we displayed a short film concerning emotions and relationships. The majority of the audience felt the simplicity and relatable aspect of the plot was key in their understanding.
What Was Effective About The Sound? What Did You Like About The Sound?
Audience feedback allowed us to see how our music soundtrack choice was received. Members of the students thought that the song "make you feel my love" by Adele, was an ideal song to choose to match the on screen drama, and described it as "emotional, to match the mood of the characters". It is clear that our choice of song to present the significance of the characters thoughts and feelings to the audience was a success. The majority of female students feedback, stated that "it reflected the female character’s emotions once the father left". I feel that our short film may be better perceived by female viewers following this feedback, as the females displayed more understanding towards the feelings and emotions the song was aimed to reflect.
Did you like the ending of the short film?
Feedback displayed that the ambiguous ending of our film was well received, with some stating "it left people to make their own minds up’. This is what we wanted to create, a product which is left open ended with no definitive resolution to leave the audience to evaluate their own interpretations. Although, some feedback commented that the situation "wasn’t solved", we wanted our film to not follow the typical narrative structure of other films and instead have a "unique twist".
What Was Effective About The Camera Angles?
Some audience feedback revealed that the "zoom out of the little girl’s face showed us how she felt by her parents arguing". This is what we wanted to achieve, we wanted the young girl’s emotions and feelings to be expressed in reaction of her parents arguing. This scene was key in highlighting the sadness and upset of the young girl, and from our feedback, some members of the group appreciated and recognised our intentions. Also, audience members commented on the flow of the camera movement, which allowed a flow throughout the plot narrative, which is key in the audience’s initial understanding.
What Did You Think Was Weak About The Film and Do You Have Any Suggestions To Improve It?
From the audience response it is clear that our intentions were recognised and understood, which I believe makes our film a successful product. Some students commented on the ending and stated they would rather have a resolved ending, however as stated above I feel that our main objective in creating a unique film is our ambiguous ending.
We also conducted recorded further interviews with members of our audience to gain a more in depth and detailed view of their thoughts in relation to our film. Below is our recorded interview.
How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?
Research and Planning
The use of the Internet was key in order for our research and planning to help craft our ancillary texts and our short film. In particular www.google.com was used in order to research into other magazines to help influence our decision of which style would best suit our film review. We further researched other film reviews from a variety of different magazines including Empire, FHM and Sight and sound. Upon analysing these magazines we were able to gain an understanding of what conventions are used and how they are used, which would influence our decision on what design conventions we would use in both our film and our ancillary texts and which style and language route we would aim to achieve, which would appeal and attract our decided target audience. On reflection of these magazines, it was clear that each magazine possessed different interpretation on reviews. We also used Google, to search for iconic film posters, and saw what conventions made them memorable and what worked for the audiences. These influenced our choice to have a majority of functional information and let the image speak for itself.The use of www.youtube.com was key for the research in to other short films, which enabled the understanding of what a short independent film has to offer and how they differ from Hollywood blockbuster films. Through research, short films such as ‘Letters of Service’ and ‘The Strangers’ struck a spark of interest through their lack of dialogue as this is a common convention of short films.The lack of speech allowed the openness to our own interpretations, and drew our attention into the film and the narrative. We decided in following in the footsteps of these short films, and allowed us to produce a short film which consisted of a lack of dialogue and left the audience with an ambiguous plot, I believe this was the right decision to ensure a influential film to our audience. This research and planning, helped the production of our short film, our film review and film poster in a professional light, and which work well with the audience.
Construction
We recorded our film footage, we used a HD Film Camera to shoot each scene. This technically advanced camera allowed us to produce good quality footage which we was happy to use in our short film. After we finished our filming, we then transferred our clips onto a program called Adobe Premiere Elements, which allowed us to edit each scene individual and then let us begin the process of putting our film together. We were able to cut and cross cuts several scenes to help illustrate our narrative in the way we wanted it to be perceived. In particular, the prgram allowed us to take the sound from one scene and transfer it to another scene, to further present the distress and upset on the young girl's face in reaction to her parents arguing. We were able to add a soundtrack (make you feel my love by Adele) to symbolise the feelings of lonliness and isolation amongst the characters and a soundtrack is a common factor in most films. This program allowed us to achieve and use conventions which are present in other short films. However, due to the size of the clips on the computer, this program was prone to freezing, and provided us with some difficulties, although we are aware that this project wouldn’t be ‘glitch free’.
Another technical program we used was Fireworks Macromedia, which was used in the production of our film poster. A blurriness tool was used around the main image of the young girl, this gave the impression of unclear and uncertain intentions, and ensures the main focal point is the young girl, as in the film she is the heart of the family home, and is potentially the person who holds them together. The sharpen tool, also helped progress our image by allowing us to sharpen the pixels surrounding the prop of scissors, showing a dramatic edge in highlighting the potential dangerous prop. This program allowed us to further develop our original ideas and inspiration of our film poster. Technical programmes are sometimes prone to problems, however I feel that overall they helped develop our product to the best of our ability.
Evaluation
During our evaluation stages, we used a blog to identify and access our final production of 'Torn' with the combination of both a film poster and a film review. Using a blog allowed me to be make more creative and enabled me to use videos clips and images to illustrate the creative decisions made to produce our final product through a more interactive and visual dynamic. Using the blog is typical to use during our current technological advances, this more inventive way of disputing and discussing our ideas and creative decisions was more enjoyable and interesting that a typical straight essay. It made our group work easier,due to copying ,and pasting and easier file sharing between each person in our groups. Using a blog allowed us to act quickly when we thought of creative ideas, as we could write and record them down on the blog at any time, due to its easy access not just at school but at home.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When gathering audience feedback we distributed a questionnaire to a large group of students with a variety of ages from 11- 16 who had seen our short film so that we could easily assess how our film had been perceived by our audience. When asked whether they liked our short film, the majority of our audience answered that they did like our film, this is obviously a good result for us, as the audience is key in a film’s success.
What Genre Do You Think The Film Is?
Our audience feedback revealed that the majority understood the genre we aimed to base our film on was ‘Drama’. Some commented that it was "based on real life", this is what we aimed to succeed. We wanted to present the realistic view of what goes on ‘behind closed doors’, and this situation would be relatable; both as a child seeing their parents argue and being at the centre of family issues, and as a parent who is experiencing family struggles.
What Is The Film About and Could You Follow The Plot Easily?
Looking at our feedback sheets, In particular our film appealed to the younger students of the group we accessed, I feel this constituted from the flow of the plot and our narrative was simple and relatable. The females also understood the plot in more detail, as we displayed a short film concerning emotions and relationships. The majority of the audience felt the simplicity and relatable aspect of the plot was key in their understanding.
What Was Effective About The Sound? What Did You Like About The Sound?
Audience feedback allowed us to see how our music soundtrack choice was received. Members of the students thought that the song "make you feel my love" by Adele, was an ideal song to choose to match the on screen drama, and described it as "emotional, to match the mood of the characters". It is clear that our choice of song to present the significance of the characters thoughts and feelings to the audience was a success. The majority of female students feedback, stated that "it reflected the female character’s emotions once the father left". I feel that our short film may be better perceived by female viewers following this feedback, as the females displayed more understanding towards the feelings and emotions the song was aimed to reflect.
Did you like the ending of the short film?
Feedback displayed that the ambiguous ending of our film was well received, with some stating "it left people to make their own minds up’. This is what we wanted to create, a product which is left open ended with no definitive resolution to leave the audience to evaluate their own interpretations. Although, some feedback commented that the situation "wasn’t solved", we wanted our film to not follow the typical narrative structure of other films and instead have a "unique twist".
What Was Effective About The Camera Angles?
Some audience feedback revealed that the "zoom out of the little girl’s face showed us how she felt by her parents arguing". This is what we wanted to achieve, we wanted the young girl’s emotions and feelings to be expressed in reaction of her parents arguing. This scene was key in highlighting the sadness and upset of the young girl, and from our feedback, some members of the group appreciated and recognised our intentions. Also, audience members commented on the flow of the camera movement, which allowed a flow throughout the plot narrative, which is key in the audience’s initial understanding.
What Did You Think Was Weak About The Film and Do You Have Any Suggestions To Improve It?
From the audience response it is clear that our intentions were recognised and understood, which I believe makes our film a successful product. Some students commented on the ending and stated they would rather have a resolved ending, however as stated above I feel that our main objective in creating a unique film is our ambiguous ending.
We also conducted recorded further interviews with members of our audience to gain a more in depth and detailed view of their thoughts in relation to our film. Below is our recorded interview.
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