FINAL PRODUCTS

FINAL FILM POSTER

FINAL FILM REVIEW PAGE 

EVALUATION POINT 4

EVALUATION - POINT 3

EVALUATION - POINT 2

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

- When making my short film & ancillary tasks I ensured that they were both in a position to be visually interpreted by consumers. In my main task, I did this by using many captions (or Anchorage) to 'fix' or allow consumers to understand the text from the producers point of view. In addition to this I focused on the auditory aspects of my short film. I used a wide range of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound throughout my film; which included songs such as 'Lazy Song' by Bruno Mars to the natural laughter of my starring talent.
- I created my film poster using a combination of both of my starring actors faces in a single photo. I knew from the start that due to the context of my short film documentary (using a maximum number of 2 characters only), that I was going to portray both protagonist characters in both of my ancillary tasks. I decided that I wanted to collaborate my talents' faces in a single photo not only so that less physical space was taken up on the ancillary tasks, but also so that consumers could easily recognise the film and so that my two characters were established almost immediately.
- In my opinion my short film makes it rather clear that the two characters being featured are female students - therefore an audience could make the assumption that my TA is youthful females. With this in mind, I decided that in order for any consumer to be able to relate to my text, I needed to approach their specific demands|requirements to be satisfied. Therefore I purposely remained using a 'feminine' or 'girly' theme throughout my ancillary tasks too. This included using colours that are typically associated with girls, such as pastel colours like Pink and White. However due to the realistic chosen topic of discussion (cultural identity) I decided to keep my poster and film review slightly sophisticated - to do this I used a plain black background, Serif fonts, as well as a close up shot conveying the naturalistic side to my teenagers.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

- So what did consumers think?

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK - Film review

EVALUATION - PART ONE

CODES AND CONVENTIONS 

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

So I think its fairly safe to say that unlike my AS magazine production, I actually used a lot of conventions of short film documentaries! 

Although I do enjoy challenging conventions of media texts, I have learnt that it is slightly more challenging to do so when you are making a film. Last year, my main task for my Media coursework was to make a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. In this particular case I was only taking photos - there was no movement in any of my production, in fact the entire thing was images - therefore challenging conventions was something I found a little easier to do, because it depended mostly on how I chose to edit my magazine production. However this year my task was to create a 5 minute long short film - where the editing is not the only factor involved in determining the success of the material, resulting in the 'challenging' of conventions being more difficult, and I found myself using conventions far more, in order to create a great short film that potential audiences would be satisfied with.

Things that I believe I challenged include 

- Set ups: purposely setting up 'typical' scenes - although I had a rough idea of the structure of my short film, I refrained from manipulating moments and creating conventional scenes

- Talking heads - when I conducted research about short films in my genre, prior to filming, I found that many documentaries tended to use a familiar camera angle often referred to as 'Talking Heads' -  Although I may have used this relatively close up angle occasionally on my talent within my short film, it certainly was not the only|main angle that I used!

- A clear narrative 

- Personal Identity 

- Diversion 

- Escapism 

- Wish fulfilment

My short film has a key theme of culture and individuality, therefore in order for this to be portrayed clearly to a consumer I decided to use two protagonist characters. My aim was for the audience to 

Conventions I think I used: (There is a lot, embrace yourself)

- 'Real Footage' of events 

- Technicality of realism - I used natural sound and lighting the entire time

- Interviews with 'experts' - in my case the 'experts' where my talent, and key starring actors, I used interviews at the start to ensure that my characters were established quickly (due to time)

- Duration - 5 minuets (obviously)

- Use of text and titles - I added these in my editing process on the Apple Mac

- Sound non dietetic (I added my own sounds and music also in the editing process) 

- Visual coding - By this I am referring to Mise en Scene - I ensured that every scene was arranged accordingly when it came to locations - for instance I would make sure that bedrooms were tidy and characters were positioned in a natural, normal position in the room 

- Single camera production (hand held too)  

Conventions that I would like my film to have include Escapism as the consumer will be focusing their attention to something that provides a different situation from their lives which could be boring in their opinion and even if their lives are not boring, its still new interesting material to keep them occupied and at least entertain and teach valuable lessons to. Personal identity is apparent as I have purposely used characters that themselves would fit into my TA therefore making the protagonists people that my teenage TA can link with - meaning that the audiences can identify and relate to the talent I have chosen and their lifestyles that I have portrayed in the film. In addition to this, since my film has a beginning, middle and ending, I strongly believe that my short film has a linear structure as the events flow chronologically, leaving the audience satisfied with being familiar with the structure. Audiences may also use my short film characters and see them as heroines due to the fact that they are able to effectively embrace their make up and ethnicity and still be humble and compatible in any society, they adaptive and can change accordingly to any situation - this could be an element that many consumers respect, especially females, as confidence and individuality have been emphasised in a positive light - making it 'cool' to be different. - With this in mind, I would say that my short film is alike to documentaries that compare cultures such as 'West is West' or 'Bend it like Beckham' but with a slightly different perspective and overall message.
Due to the light-hearted nature of my film, I think that having some sort of comedic value is essential to understanding the film and not being offended by it. Therefore it could be argued that my film is a little post-modern due to the lack of seriousness it withholds. Having said this, whether or not my film fits into the comedic- doc category, is entirely up to the consumer to decide, making it a highly subjective matter based on personal opinions and a little general knowledge.

Film Poster Plan

Although it is not completely clear, this was my film poster plan that I drew a rough sketch of:

It consists of:
- A bold title
- Half of Raveena's face
- Half of Georiga's face
- Annotations of background colour, credit locations, positioning of text, and colours.

ANCILLARY TASK - FILM POSTER (FINAL)

Here is my final poster for my short film documentary -IDENTITY. At the bottom of the poster I have included all of the credits, the release date of the film and the names of the two main characters. I included as much information as I thought was necessary, so that a consumer could use this as a slight introduction or briefing to my film. I took photos of my talent (and starring actors) and edited half of their faces together using 'Online Image Editor' 'Piclay' and 'Pixlr'. Pixr was the most important aspect of this editing process as this allowed me to add various font sizes types.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

Creating my Film Poster - The Process

Step 1.

To create my final film poster for my documentary, I used Pixlr and Piclay. So, to start with I took the photos of my talent using a basic iPhone camera and initially edited the photos separately. I started editing the photo of Raveena first, and decided to use the left hand side of her face. The standard editing procedure consisted of removing any red marks or blemishes on the face using the 'online photo editor' tool. Once this was finished I then carried out the exact same process for Georgia, but this time I used the right hand side of her face. I decided to use only half of each talents face as I had already planned out how I was going to create my film poster - I knew that I was going to combine their faces on one page to create a synchronised effect.

Step 2.

After combining the two images, I decided that the variation in skin colour made it slightly difficult to create a simultaneous effect which I wanted for my poster to express the equality or 'sameness' of the unique individuals. Therefore to over come this problem I removed all colour from the image by using the 'Afterlight' photo editing software. I started off by removing all colour (by taking all saturation out of the image) and then by adding a black and white filter over the top of the image called 'Raven'. Matching the images up in terms of facial features was the most difficult part of the process and took some time, but thankfully I got there in the end!

Step 3. 

The next stage involves the creation of the poster itself. 

I used a basic black image for my template, and I then added the text and photos onto this template using the Pixlr photo editing software. I enjoyed experimenting with various fonts and text sizes and I also liked the freedom I had in terms of deciding the exact location of each word on my poster to be.  

Step 4. 

 After adding the text & combined images I used the fonts 'American Typewriter' and the 'Firecat' font from the novelty selection on Pixlr. I used these fonts to create the credits at the bottom of the film poster


- Bold title of my film
- The date of release
- The credits at the bottom
- A main image
- Plain background so focus can be on photo and texts
- Various fonts and font sizes

Step 5.

Final touches:

- Since my TA and talent in the film are young females, I decided to include some colour. With my TA in mind I thought it would be great to use a feminine colour that relates to my predicted consumers. I also wanted to make it as clear as possible to audiences which character was who - therefore I included the names of both characters at the bottom in a bold youthful font called ''Blokletters' which creates an effect of youthful - pen written words. I placed each character name on the relevant side of the page (according to which character was on this side). Another reason that I decided to include the names of my characters on the poster was so that they could be established easily and quickly - as my documentary is a short film.

'MISSING CAMERA' | ISSUES WITH FCP

- While creating a short film documentary, there were a series of technical issues that I would like to discuss...

1.) 'MISSING CAMERA' - This was the problem that put me in the worst situation possible - for an unexplained reason.
- I had already organised time, created schedules, filmed and even uploaded, when to my horror I found that 11 clips of Raveena had been deleted. There was no way of retrieving these clips again.
Things that I tried to fix the problem:
- Contacted my school I.T dep. where we tried to trace the footage that had been filmed on a school camera
- Searched endlessly on the school's backup computer for missing files
- Googled methods of retrieving files that had been deleted
- My school I.T department tried their best to help me, however even the experts could not explain or even understand the reasoning behind this.
- SO, after a lot of tears, frustration and increased stress levels, I had only one option left. This was to refilm the deleted scenes. Of course, I did not have enough time to re-film every scene as perfectly as before, but I absolutely tried my best, so I can only ask that, when you watch my documentary please keep this unfortunate situation in mind!

2.) FCP MEMORY and CRASHING
The overall process of my editing and film - creating process was very slow. The Mac that I was using had hardly any memory which meant that I was constantly experiencing a series of long 30 minute, crashes - hindering me from doing my work. Of course, initially, I resulted in putting my time into my blog, however this was not always a possibility - especially with the upcoming deadline!

Here is a perfect example of the rainbow coloured waiting game

Creating my Film Review - The process

 To create my film review I used a similar process as to my creation of my film poster - by this I am referring to the technology used as well as the editing software that I used too.

Here are visual images of my process within the creation of my film review:

first draft

Film Review

Here is my final film review. To create this I used Piclay, and Pixlr for the basic editing and then Afterlight to create the complex final and finishing touches. I did have some problems with the uploading process due to the image appearing blurry |unclear when I posted to the blog. I used a range of colours, mainly pink and black as a contrast, but also pink was used purposely to attract female audiences and sustain their attention particularly as they are my TA. (I still feel as though this image is blurry - but I have tried multiple times to make the image clearer and this is the best I can get it to)

FILM POSTER - draft 1

Here is my draft film poster. As you can see I have added my film title 'IDENTITY' at the top of the poster and the credits have been written at the bottom. I have used half faces of my film talent - I used the app PICLAY to create this affect. I have used various font sizes to emphasise the most important aspects of the information to stand out the most to the consumer.

Analysing my short film - IDENTITY

Transitions that I used:

- Circle - Checker - Cross Dissolve - Centre 

- Flash back - flip - flash - drop in and Earthquake 

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK - What I have learnt

Audience:

- I have learnt that without audiences, there would be no media. There are a large variety of ways to attract audiences, and in today's day and age, there is many advanced methods that media institutions use to attract a particular audience 'group' known as the Target Audience. Throughout my experience I have learnt that due to audience control, it is always best to keep a specific TA in mind, and tailor your media product to fit the demands of a certain group, this way via audience | feedback or response, as a media producer I could easily identify aspects of my texts that were liked by my TA as well as factors that could have been changed slightly. For instance, the representation of my characters within my short film documentary. 

Re- Scripting (Raveena)

Here is the re- script that I created last minute due to the fact that my work was deleted and I had little time left to re - create the scenes that I had done previously. 

Finalising - Finishing off and uploading to YouTube

As some of my scenes got deleted, editing and finally uploading my main product to YouTube so that it could be posted to my blog was a challenging task for me. Nonetheless, here is my process:

- After observing the actions of those around me, I learnt how to upload a film from the final cut pro software to the internet. The first step included downloading the film itself to the desktop of the Mac. This process took approximately 30 mins. The next step for me was to allow YouTube to process the film, which again took 30 mins. After an hour of processing, there was only one step left. This of course was the uploading - luckily this did not take as long as the rest of the process! So I uploaded, waited, processed, waited, waited some more, and then, once all was finalised... I embedded the YouTube video into blogger. This last step was simple, as there was a share and embed option which allowed me to copy and paste the code into the HTML section of my blogger account.

If you look carefully at the top left corner of this image that I took of my work on the FCP software, you will see a large series of red clips that state 'MISSING CAMERA' this meant that all of my clips of one member of my talent crew had been deleted. This caused a huge crisis for me, as I could not retrieve the clips what so ever, and had to re-film scenes with my talent - hindering my process of meeting the set deadline.

Analysing my Short Film

Camera Angles:                          
- CU: close up
- MCU: Medium close up
- Mid Shot
- Panning Shot
- Handled shot
- High angle shot

Editing Techniques:
- Match on action
- Continuity
- Transitions
- Special effects
- Cuts
- Eye-line match
- 180 degree rule
- cross fade
- dissolve
- black hole
- cross checked
- page turn
- flips
- sparkle

My short film

Film Review Plan

• I drew a rough sketch of my review plan using A4 paper so that I was fully aware of how to produce my actual review page. I got my planning inspiration from researching existing review pages for a variety of films including the Harry Potter collection and the Twilight Saga film collection.The layout of my film review was the same as this, however the only difference is that I found it was conventional to write in columns as opposed to paragraphs - which is something that I would not have known if I did not conduct research and planning before getting down to the production!

draft film review

MY TA | What they look like

MY TARGET AUDIENCE 

- school students -youthful - optimistic - open minded - fun - studios - all different - fashionable 

-Socialising and having fun is a key factor to consider in regards to my TA, especially when creating my short film and ancillary tasks.

Different cultural|ethnic|racial backgrounds - this is the main focus of my film

Existing short film posters - 'The Cove'

For my A2 Media coursework one of my tasks involves making a poster for my short film. In order to make a great film poster I decided to take a look at some other existing film posters to get a clearer insight into my task. In my previous post I created a draft, that I am both pleased and slightly unhappy with... therefore when it comes to making my final poster I want to make it as appealing and interesting as possible. I have also learnt from my previous poster that it is important that my poster informs audiences immediately what my film is going to be about, for example the one below suggests that 'The cove' is going to focus on wild life in the water. I feel that my first draft of my film poster was clear and concise, but lacked information about my film which could either cause confusion or make my short film seem boring. - Its important that I attract my TA.

Here is a film poster from 'The Cove' documentary. The poster is simple and has used basic font throughout the entire poster. There is one main colour theme, and the use of blue connotes depth and stability. The use of quotes at the bottom of the poster suggest an element of seriousness, making the documentary seem realistic already.

Creation of my first film poster - Pictures

In my previous post I outlined the method I used to create my first draft of my film poster.

In this post I am going to upload the photos of my process so that my steps to the final (first) product can be illustrated visually...

 

This was the first step after I added filters to my chosen image. I liked the wide range of colours in the photo so I decided to enhance them to make the image itself more appealing. I did this by increasing the overall temperature and saturation of the natural colours in the photo,

I then used highlights in the photo - this one is called 'light leak' and I used the colour 03 in a green shade. 

This step was choosing a font. I wanted something bold yet simple. This was because I knew that I was not going to use much language on the poster - therefore it was vital that I used a conspicuous font for my title. In the end I used the font 'DISCO'. I also came to the decision that I would position the title at the bottom of the poster and have the names of my talent at the top of the page. - Here I used conventions of existing film posters. 

Drafting my film poster

Part of my A2 Media coursework involves making a poster to advertise my short film.
In this post I am going to upload my current draft and explain how I made it... I am also going to focus on the aspects of the poster that I personally like and of course what I think could be improved.

To start with I used my iPhone to take the photos and I uploaded my favourite photo to an editing software called 'VISCOCAM' on this program I was able to edit the basic elements of the photo which only involved a few small steps: Increasing the brightness, lessening the sharpness of the photo and increasing the temperature. - These are my photo editing rules to live by.

I then transferred this same, now edited image to another software for photos on my phone called 'PICLAY'. I liked this application because of the wide range of editing tools that some of my other apps didn't have, such as creating a 'double' or 'mirror' effect, the option to add additional art to my photos and edit the opacity of the image too. Using this I added a pink opacity filter to add colour to the image.

I also used my favourite editing tool called 'AFTERLIGHT' to make some final touches and then of course I used 'PIXLR AUTODESK' to add my title and names to the image to actually make it into a poster.

In the image I used my talent Georgia. The image itself was taken whilst we were filming in a Church.

Here is my first draft of my short film poster

Things I am happy with:

I am overall pleased with my first draft of the poster and I do like the various use of colours on the image - This makes the poster seem more interesting and appealing to an audience. I wanted to keep the poster relatively simple, with as little words as possible. I did not want to risk the poster looking messy as this will decrease chances of people wanting to watch the film. I was in two minds about using the photo of my talent in a church, however since my short film is based on culture, I do feel that this poster suggests an element of this which is also a positive note for me. I did not want my talents face to be shown, as I think that this creates a lack of understanding - the aim of this being that the TA are intrigued and want to watch the film to find out more. - After doing some research I found that many film posters tend to give out limited information about the film. This way the chances of a large audience are increased because although they may have a small understanding about the basis of the film. they cannot tell everything about the film just from a picture. Less is more, and I believe that this works with this poster.

On the other hand: Despite the fact that I am pleased with the photo and the poster itself, I think that the meaning of my film is not portrayed in this draft. I want to change this and use both members of my talent crew so that there is a slightly more in depth understanding of my film and the characters starring in it. These are just a few things that I have learnt that I would like to change and will be doing so in my final draft of my short film poster. 

Creative Processes in Media

Creative processes from Avigill123

Evaluation time

CODES AND CONVENTIONS 

- In what way does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

For my A2 Media products I would like to think that I both challenged and used conventions of real media products. Throughout my production my aim was to make products that were not so typical of the representative field of short film. I think that challenging conventions of real media products is important because I think that it is a method of development in relation to audience reaction within the making of any type of film. Having said this, it is equally significant that we use existing codes and conventions not only so that the product makes sense but also so that the film can be tailored to attract a certain group of people or target audience. Audience reaction is the most important part of making what is referred to as a 'successful' film therefore any type of reaction that can be instigated from an audience, is valued whether it is negative or positive. In fact, a negative audience reaction is good because any constructive criticism that can be provided can only benefit the producer in the long run. 

Some things that I feel that I challenged include: 

- The use of various locations for my filming which also includes use of different types of lighting 

- Camera shots in some of my scenes

 (I believe I have used a bird's eye view in one of my scenes) which is not typical for my type of film

- 'Real footage of events' 

Codes and Conventions that I used: 

- Minimal amount of characters - I got this idea from a short film that we watched in Media class at the end of AS. The film was called 'Slinky' and I have done a review on the film in one of my earlier posts. The film used limited characters to compliment the length of the film - placing emphasis on each characters introduction to the audience throughout the film to save time. In my short film I used a similar method by using only 2 characters and ensuring that they had a complete introduction at the start of the film.

- Audience relation to my film 

Technicality of realism: 

• Natural lighting and sound 
• use of text & titles | words on the screen - this was a cost efficient way of conveying information 
• sound - Diegetic; voices of characters, sounds made by objects in the story
• Non-diegetic sound; narrators commentary, sound effects for drama as well as additional mood music 
• 'Set Ups'/ Typical scenes - sometimes included waiting for things to occur naturally 
• Visual coding e.g. mise en scene & props which included: class books/ stationary/ visual glasses/ clothing or costume/ locations and mobile phones - all added to amplify impact of the scenes. 
• Unintended sound | hand held camera work

 Single camera production: Narrative Structure 

- Linear structure (sequential): where the order of events in my film happened chronologically (B/M/E)

- Closed ending: the drama finishes and is completed with a resolution

Research Methods

Types of Research Methods:

- Internet search engines such as: Google | Yahoo | Bing (Secondary Research)
- Surveys and Questionnaires (Primary Research)
- Interview ( Primary)
- Textual Analysis (Primary Research)
- Industry Websites (Secondary Research)
- Books | Newspapers (Secondary Research)
- Radio | T.V
- Email | Letters (Primary Research)
- Audience Feedback

Quantitative Data: This is data that is either statistical or numerical based. This type of data can be collated from Questionnaires where I may find patterns or trends with answers that were given to me. For example, I did a quick survey asking people whether or not they liked my film name 'Cultural Differences' (my first name) and I found that 35/45 people did not like it. Therefore have come to a conclusion that I am no longer going to use this as my short film title.

Qualitative Data: This is data that is based on words. For example this type of data may result from using research methods such as books and magazines (as I will be analysing the words in them).

Data that I used:

- Short film blog (what you are reading this from)
- Textual Analysis of other existing short films
- Looked at all of my previous notes that I made in class.
- I used the internet
- Looked at other existing short films for inspiration
- Survey

Primary Research: Pro's and Con's ...

Textual Analysis:
 Pro: - Gives me an insight into how to make my own short film providing me with endless innovation.
Con: - I needed to be careful when analysing other current existing material as I had to make sure that I was only observing and not copying other ideas that are not my own as well as avoiding copying the film itself.

Questionnaires:
Pro: - I can get answers quickly, making the entire data collection time efficient.
Con: - The answers that I was provided with may not have been entirely accurate as people may have only provided me with what they think I want to hear instead of their actual opinion - this is called desirability bias. Also, if the questions are not planned cautiously then answers may not actually be helpful or relevant, E.g 'Is my film good?' I may have received an answer saying 'yeah' or 'quite good'. Instead questions asking why should be put in place such as 'What do you like about this film' or 'what needs improving?'

Secondary Research: Pro's and Con's

Internet:
- Copyright issues
- Sites such as Wikipedia may not be accurate and can therefore be unreliable
- SPAM with the internet and cons to donate money as well as pop up adverts while you are researching,
- Information from the internet may be irrelevant
- Information overload | too much detail makes it increasingly difficult to filter and select information - Internet isn't free / taxes are expenses.

My Film - Meaning | Definition

My short film is designed to show how society views particular religions and cultures completely as what society perceives it to be, and every person within a certain ethnic or social group to be the same without any complexity or identity of individual people. Rather than perceiving people as people with diversity I feel that race, ethnicity and culture determine how individuals are viewed in a community. My film is an attempt to demonstrate that regardless of background and origin every person is individual and nobody is simultaneously the same.

Filming // Locations - RECCE

1.) Georgia's Bedroom:

This is a key filming location for me as this is captures Georgia in her element as this is the location in which she spends the most time. I think that this reinforces the reality of my film by use of a natural setting.















2.) Raveena's bedroom. Here is an image of the location that I filmed Raveena's scenes in. Again I have used an ambient environment to reflect the actuality of my short film. There are some obvious differences between the style of the various locations and this to illustrates the differences in character of my two actresses.