Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?  

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1

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

Media Platforms: 

One key way in which I have conformed to common conventions show by many real short film productions, is the use of YouTube to share my film. YouTube and Vimeo are the most common platforms that short filmmakers use to share and upload their productions. Personally, I have chosen YouTube as in an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year old watch YouTube. This age range includes out target audience and therefore ensures that our film will be made easily accessible to them. The website also has around 1.3 billion users, which is often the reason why it attracts many filmmakers to publish their work on the site.

Credits: 

An additional way in which we conformed to conventions of real media texts was in our use of credits. Typically, short film open with the title of the film, then end with rolling credits (similar to feature films). We chose to follow this popular format as we wanted to create a film that appeared professional.  Below have displayed screen shots from our film, along with images from films that I have analysed earlier in the course. I have put these images side by side to show how we have taken inspiration from real media products.




Camera and Editing: 

We also remained largely conventional in our methods of filming and editing. Much of the inspiration for our short film came from the films we had analysed earlier in the course. These included:

• 'Youth' - Tommy Petroni 
• '9 Meter' - Anders Walter 
• 'We Were Awesome' - Jesse Coane 

We chose to follow the common conventions and features we had found throughout our research, as we wanted to create a film that appeared professional and of a high quality. Below, I have created a short video displaying a few of the ways in which we took inspiration from real media products in terms of shot types and editing. 

Mis En Scene: 
One reoccurring element that I found in my research of real media products, was that short films tended to depict much of the action taking place in one key location. This appeared to be due to the low budgets and short running times of the film. However, our short film has subverted this convention as the action takes place in multiple locations.  Although these differing locations may not be conventional of short coming of age films, they remain conventional of the genre. For example we included locations such as schools and a teenagers bedroom. This therefore made our film easily identifiable as a coming of age story, thus appealing more to our target audience. This decision also made out film unique as a short film, as few other films include as many locations as we have within their narrative. 

Narrative and Genre: 
Films within the coming of age genre typically follow a journey of personal growth. Usually the narrative will follow the protagonist as they develop from an immature teen to a emotionally mature young adult. We have followed this basis for the narrative, however we have challenged Todorov's narrative theory. Rather than following a narrative with three conventional stages (equilibrium, disequilibrium, followed by equilibrium again), we have chosen to use a voice over to suggest what she may have done differently in her past. This is effective as we were able to conform to the conventional story line of personal growth as we have presented an older, more mature version of the character, reflecting back on her childhood. Our narrative also allows us to offer an interesting storyline within the short running time we were given from the specification. Also, we remained conventional to the coming of age genre by including familiar experiences such as exams, relationships and break ups, which our target audience will likely be able to relate with.

Voice Over: 
Voice overs are typical within the coming of age genre. However, from my research, I found that voice overs are much less common within short films. By making the decision to include a voice over within our narrative, we have successfully created a narrative that is well established within the coming of age genre, however stands out as unique against existing media texts.

Final Film and Ancillary Products

Issues With The Second Draft

After completing our second draft, we asked our teachers to give us some feedback on minor improvements we could make. One adjustment we were given was to make areas of the voice over louder in order to make them easier to hear. For example at 3.40 the narrator says 'go on road trips'. This is lost behind the music and is therefore hard for the audience to hear. We will therefore be going back onto iMovie and adjusting the sound of each segment of the voice over in order to make it easier to hear.

Second Draft of Short Film

Post-Production: Recording the Voice Over

Following the sound tests we conducted on a Macbook Pro, we realised that we would have to use more sophisticated equipment to record the voice over for our film. We therefore used a standalone microphone to record the voice over, along with a pair of earphones that allowed us to listen back to the sound in real time to ensure that the quality was at the level we wanted. We then exported the recording and laid it over the top of the footage. We decided to use iMovie for this as it is a software we are both more familiar with. We therefore exported our final film,with the music, then started a new project in iMovie.

We cut the voice recording into smaller segments and laid each bit of of the script over it's corresponding footage.

Post-Production: Choosing a Voice

In our script the narrator says that she is 'turning 21 this year'. As this is a key element of our narrative, we wish to cast a narrator that appears mature. We narrowed our choices down to two teachers at our school. We recorded sound tests for both voices, in which we asked our actors to read the script. We then laid this over the top of our film along side the music we had chosen, and decided which narration we preferred. Ultimately we decided to choose to use our teacher, Miss Montague, as the narrator for our film.

Post-Production: Creating the Ending Quote

As our film comes to an end, the narrator leaves the audience with the final line: 'don't waste your youth growing up'. We wanted to make this line impactful and therefore decided to have the quote appear on screen behind the protagonist as she walks across the frame. To achieve this we used Premiere Pro. Firstly we created a text box to go across the screen, and selected a font that would look slightly like graffiti. We then used the effects control to create a 'mask path' for the text to follow. We moved the footage along a frame at the time, the moved the text so that it followed behind the character. This resulted in the text appearing as Molly walked across the frame.

Issues We Faced in Our Second Draft

When editing we found that some of our clips did not have any audio. This was due to a fault in one of the cameras we had been using. However, after adding the soundtrack, we found that the additional audio distorted the sound of the music. We therefore made the footage silent, and this technical problem turned out not to be an issue.

Editing: Colour Correction

Following the feedback from our first draft, myself and Lucy decided to use colour correction in order to make our film look more visually interesting. For this we used the three-way colour wheel on Premiere Pro to allow us accuracy and control over the brightness, contrasts and tones on each clip.

We later decided that we would also add a filter onto the whole film. We found this filter on the Premiere Pro software, and found that it provided a more cinematic look for our film.

Below is an example of a shot before and after we have added the effect.

Improvements To Make To Our First Draft

To reflect upon the first draft of our film, we gathered a group of our target audience and asked for them to provide us with suggested improvements.

The first suggestion we received that appeared to be unanimous within the group, was that our initial draft was not long enough. The OCR specification that we are following requires our short film to fill a five minute time frame. Therefore we may need to have another filming day in order to collect enough footage to create a further 2 minutes of film.

Another improvement that was suggested to us was that we should alter the opening of our film and perhaps use the title sequence at the very beginning of the film. Upon further reflection, both myself and Lucy have decided that we are not happy with the montage at the beginning of the film as it appears out of place. We will therefore be beginning the film with our title sequence and then following that with the birthday cake scene in which the camera slowly rotates around the protagonist. This will therefore allow us to slowly build up the the fast editing sequences rather than jumping straight into it.

We have also decided that we would like to include some colour correction or a filter to the footage in order to create a more visually interesting film.

First Draft of Short Film

Magazine Final Draft

Magazine Review: Making Improvements

Text: 

From my feedback, it became clear that my target audience did not believe that my original draft looked professional. The main cause of this appeared to be the font of the text on my page. I therefore downloaded a font online that gave a handwritten appearance. I used this font for both the title of the page, the text below it and the release date displayed at the bottom of the page. This therefore made the overall page link to the genre of coming of age. I also included a large font for the first letter of the article as this is a common feature within many magazines and therefore makes the page look more professional. 

I also received feedback that the article was not entirely easy to read. To solve this issue I placed a black text box behind the text, then increased the translucency of the box in order to create a more professional look. I also used the hyphenate command in InDesign to ensure the text was easier to read. 

Further Adjustments: 

Again, in order to achieve a more professional look, I enlarged the background to ensure that it overlapped the bleed lines of the page. This therefore ensured that the there will not be a white boarder should the page be printed. I also added further details such as the blue text box in the bottom left corner. The bright blue of the box contrasts the warm tones of the page, therefore making it stand out. This was something I found was consistently used in the magazines I analysed and thus I believed I should include it. I also found that critical acclaim was a common aspect among magazine film reviews, and therefore I included a 5 star icon after the article. 

Ancillary: Magazine Review Improvements

Following the creation of my first draft, I referred to a focus group of my target audience and asked for their suggestions for improvements in my magazine review. I created a questionnaire with the following questions:

1.  Do you find the poster eye-catching?

- 'Yes, but the heading looks a little bit amateur'
- 'Yes I think the background picture really stands out'

2. Is the text clear and easy to read?

- 'Not really, I think you could maybe add a text box behind the article to make it stand out'
- 'The white font blends into background'
- 'The hyphenation makes some of the text hard to read'

3. Are there any further improvements you would suggest?

- 'The fonts might be a bit boring'
- 'You could make it link to the genre a bit more'

Magazine Review Page: First Draft

Firstly, when creating my magazine review, I designed a rough layout for where each of the conventional elements of a magazine review would go. I decided to create a review that subverts some of the typical conventions, in order to create a product that is unique to many others. Therefore I chose one main image to cover the whole of the double page spread. Usually, review pages include one key image along with multiple smaller pictures, however I have chosen to subvert this common feature and follow a design that is similar to the 'St. Trinians' review I looked at in my analysis. I have also decided to feature the title of my film in a bold font at the top of the page. This is not entirely uncommon, yet it is also not a typical convention within film magazine reviews. However. I have also included common characteristics such as columns for the article and text introducing the directors and production company.

Above is my first draft for my magazine review. I created this on InDesign. This software allowed me to used professional techniques in order to create my initial draft.

In order to create this initial design, I first chose a key image to cover the entirety of the page. Initially, I referred back to my initial research. From this I found the key image is often taken from an important moment within the film and thus provides an indication into the narrative. From my poster research I also found that sunset lighting is often used to promote coming of age films as it may connote an uplifting and happy narrative. Therefore I chose this particular picture as not only does it include a bright sunset, but it also comes from a prominent scene within the film.

I then followed a black and white colour scheme for the text on the page as I believed this would stand out against the warm toned background.

Post-Production: Making Titles

We wanted to create a title sequence that was both unique and linked with the coming of age genre of our film. We therefore decided to create handwritten titles, taking inspiration from the opening credits of the short film 'Bottle' by Kirsten Lepore:

We therefore researched different methods in which we could create something similar to this. Initially, we attempted to download fonts online. However this did not work as we also wanted to animate the text so that it moved in a similar way to the 'Bottle' film. We then decided to hand write the titles ourselves. Initially we took three photographs of three variations of the titles that we had written on a piece of paper. We then planned to invert the colour of the pictures on Premiere, then play them one after the repeatedly so that the text moved. However, as we had taken these pictures by a window, the colour became difficult to invert.

Therefore we re-did the same process, but this time on a school white board. This provided a much more successful outcome. Although, we did have to use a three-way colour correcting wheel on Premiere to make the text turn from a dull grey to a bright white.

Editing: Adding Black Bars

During the editing process of our first draft, we found that our film looked slightly amature. We therefore researched different methods we could use, that would give our project a more professional look. One of the techniques we found most appealing was the addition of black bars to each clip. This reduced the width of the clip and thus provided a more cinematic look.

We used Premiere Pro to achieve this. We created two new layers that would overlap a segment of the top and bottom of the clip and therefore make it appear more cinematic. Below is an example of a clip before and after the addition of black bars.

Call Sheet 8

Filming Day Eight

Once we had begun editing our project, we soon realised that we did not have enough footage to fill the 5 minute running time we were given by the OCR specification. Therefore, we spent a day filming some extra footage with our lead actress, Molly. We covered a variety of locations, starting the day by filming footage of the protagonist and her friends (myself and Lucy played these roles whilst the other person filmed). We shot this footage at People's Park in Banbury,  as we felt that this would marry nicely with the segment of our voice over that says 'be a kid'. We therefore filmed footage of the character s messing around and playing on the park equipment.

Later in the day, we travelled to Newbottle Woods and shot footage of the character 'exploring' the surrounding nature reserves, as the voice over suggests she should. We also shot Molly listening to music. We plan to add this to our montage of the character listening to music, as we felt that we were also lacking footage for this scene. 

Post-Production: Writing the Script

Whilst creating the script, we referenced back to our original story board. Through doing this we found that our original order for the scenes would not work with the script we were writing. Therefore we have formatted the script so that each element of the voice over corresponds to a scene or montage within the film. This will therefore aid us when we edit the film to match the narration.

Post-Production: Finding a Soundtrack

Initially we had hoped that a family member of mine would be able to create an original piece of music for us to use in our short film. However, due to complications, this did not work out. Therefore we sought to find copyright free music that we could use instead. We eventually chose the piece of music displayed below, created by a YouTube channel under the user name of 'Music For Creators'. This channel offers free, royalty free music in a range of genres, and therefore was perfect for our situation.

Although this piece may not suit our film as well as a custom made piece would, we still feel that it reflects the mood of our short film well and will be a good fit for our narrative.

Ancillary Research: Magazine Review - Consolidation of What I Found

One of the most prominent features I found from my magazine research was the inclusion of a screen grab from the film. I found that each of the magazine pages I used for analysis included one or more images of a moment of action within the film. The images chosen typically provide an indication as to what the narrative or genre of the film is. For example, in the Empire Magazine review of 'Wanted', the images strongly suggest that the film belongs to the action genre and may contain violent scenes. Therefore I will be including at least one screen grab of an action scene within my own film, that may connote the genre of the film and perhaps some elements of the narrative.

Something that was also clear in my research was the use of a consistent colour scheme within the page. For example, in the 'St. Trinians' review there was a consistent use of blue and cool toned colours. However, in some reviews, the title of the page was put in a different colour, so that contrasted the overall colour scheme. This can also be seen in the 'St. Trinians' review as review title was displayed in a bright yellow text box. This therefore highlights the purpose of the page and makes important information clear to the reader.

Other features I have consistently found throughout my analysis of magazine reviews, is the use of quotations, and critical acclaim. This varies throughout the reviews, however they are generally included to entice the audience and make the film appear more entertaining. Further information may also be included. For example in the 'Wanted' review, a text box was included that featured key facts about the film's institutional information. Therefore, for my own review page, I will consider including critical acclaim along with further information about the film, as to create interest within my target audience.

Ancillary Research: Magazine Review Analysis: The Dark Knight (EMPIRE)

Film Information:
'The Dark Knight' is a blockbuster, superhero film following the famous comic book characters of Batman (the hero) and the Joker (the villain). The film was directed by Christopher Nolan and had a budget of around $185 million, and was also distributed by Warner Bros Studios. The film falls within the action, crime genre and has a BBFC age rating of 12, despite it's violent tendencies. Due to this, and it's comic book source material, the target audience of the film is typically young men. The review I am using for analysis belongs to Empire magazine and thus advertises the movie to a predominantly British audience.

Images:
This review features three key images from the film. The most prominent of these images covers the upper half of the page. This picture displays Batman riding a high-tech motorcycle, through a dark tunnel. Parts of the picture are blurred, suggesting the image was captured at high speeds. This therefore suggests to the audience that the film is fast paced and exciting and thus locates the film within the action genre. This image also clearly displays the main protagonist of the film in his iconic superhero outfit. The iconic image of Batman is likely to resonate with fans of the comics, therefore intriguing these particular readers.

The second image presents another protagonist of the film; Gordon (played by Gary Oldman). In the image, Gordon is holding a vandalised newspaper article, with clown makeup painted onto one of the pictures. Fans of the comics may be able to decipher from this that this is the trademark of the Joker, and therefore will be intrigued as to how he is integrated into the narrative. Alongside this, the newspaper may be being used as evidence, therefore inferring the crime element of the narrative. Also, fans of Gary Oldman's previous work may be intrigued as to what role within the film may be.

The final image displays two further protagonist of the film; Harvey Dent and Rachel. Due to the proxemics between the two characters, the audience may determine that there is a romantic element within the narrative of the film. This therefore may intrigue people who enjoy the romance genre.

Mis En Scene:
The inclusion of the image of Batman in his full superhero costume, effectively intrigues the audience as Batman is an iconic superhero character. This may also be said for the high-tech motorcycle he is riding. The character of Batman is know for his famous gadgets, therefore the inclusion of this image suggests to the audience that this film will be a truthful adaptation of the Batman character everyone knows and loves. Guns can also be seen of the sides of this vehicle, therefore suggesting that the genre of the film is action and may also contain violence. In comparison, the costuming of the other characters in the two additional pictures appears to be quite formal. This may connote themes of wealth; something that is commonly associated with Bruce Wayne (Batman's alter-ego). Again, this suggests that the film will be a true adaptation of the original Batman comics.
The overall lighting of the three images appears to be largely artificial; therefore suggesting that the majority of the scenes take place at night. This coincides with the title 'The Dark Knight', and the artificial lighting may be a indication towards the traditional superhero narrative of 'light versus dark'. Also, the similar lighting throughout the three images creates a consistent marketing scheme for the page, as the images each conform to a similar colour scheme.

Use of Colour:
The colours used for the images on this page have a distinct warm tone. Therefore, the use of blue for the movie title and the article title at the top left of the page, successfully contrasts the warm tones and makes the text stand out more to the audience. Therefore, this information become clearer to the audience and the name of the film is made apparent to the reader. This is also true of the bold text beginning 'I'd be lying if I said'. The white font of the text stands out successfully against the dark background of the image.
However, the text boxes that display information about other contents within the magazine, are a red/ brown colour. This marries well with the warm tones of the pictures and thus ensures that the page continues to follow a consistent colour scheme.

Orthography and Graphology:
Orthography has been used at the beginning of the review to highlight the initial few words. This is a common convention within film magazine reviews, as it successfully draws the reader's attention to the text. However all of the text remains in a black, clear font. Therefore making it easy for the audience to read and thus process the information. The remaining text on the page is in a clear, white font. This has been used for key information as to make it stand out more to the reader.

Text:
There are two references to the vehicle Batman is riding, in bold, large text across the page. One of which being the white text on top of the image, referring to the vehicle as 'the batpod', and the other in a brown text box referring to it as a 'new toy'. The article below also begins talking about 'action sequences'. This clearly identifies the focus of the review; the action scenes within the film. Not only does this inform the reader of what the article will be about, but it also identifies and informs the audience of what the genre of the film is. This will therefore locate the target audience and interest fans of the action genre.

How Does This Advertise The Film?:
It is clear that both the images and text have successfully identified the genre of the film as action. Not only will this intrigue fans of the genre, but it will also suggest to fans of the original Batman material, that this will be an exciting film adaptation. The page also suggests to these fans that the film will be a truthful adaptation, due to the famous costuming and bat- gadgets and the inclusion of the infamous super villain; the Joker. Therefore, the page successfully entices the already, well established fanbase. Along with this, the consistent colour scheme of the page creates a review that is both eye catching and aesthetically appealing. Therefore intriguing a wider audience.