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Tuesday 10 May 2011

Final Product

This is our final Short film production, enjoy :)

Friday 6 May 2011

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

As i believe, that last year for A1, my blog may have been too text heavy and if a blog is too text heavy, it tends to get a bit boring after a while. So in order to address this part of my evaluation, me and my partner Rachel will be doing a piece to camera.

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

For my main product, me and my group researched typical conventions from a short award-winning film "Wasp", which features below. The main conventions we learnt for our main product were:

* Original storyline
* Stereotypical Characters
* a range of locations
* a range of shots

We tried to put all these conventions to use in our main product, by trying to make the storyline as original as possible. We used storyboards to help us.









We also had Stereotypical characters in our main production such as:

* Victim
* Criminal

My research for my anciallary tasks were influenced by Empire film magazine.

I found Empire film magazine very helpful, when creating my film review page and film poster.

When producing my film poster i followed conventions from this poster:



In the film poster above, they have an establishing shot, with an actress's shot in the middle of the poster. Their title is very appealing, with a tagline above it, and like many other film posters they have all the film details displayed at the bottom of the poster. For example, Director's and film distributors etc.

I decided to follow these conventions, whilst creating my film poster, so that it can look as professional as possible.



I also tried to follow conventions from the image above, when producing my film review page.

When producing my main product i used Todorov Theory, which is also displayed on my blog. It helped me to structure my main product. However i do believe that my main product does not follow the typical Todorov Theory. The order of our Todorov theory looks like this:

Equilibrium - Images of victim at start

Disruption of order - When victim is hit by car

Recognition that the disorder occured - Shot of victim lying on grass

Attemp to repair damage - Dog walker finding victim

Return of new equilibrium - Shot of victim dead at the end.

We also tried to use a range of locations, to keep the audience interested. The locations which we used were:

* Sutherlands Pub
* Windynook Nature park
* Rachel's house
* My house
* My car

At the start of our main product we have several shots of the victim dead on the grass. We put a sci-fi effect on these shots and used ambient sound over the shots, to make it look like a "crime scene investigation". We tried to make it look professional, also by using "fade to black" transitions.

However, i believe we as a group both did our best to challenge, develop and use conventions of real media products in our main product. However i think my anciallary tasks, seem to have followed typical conventions more than my main product.

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



For my ancillary task i had to create a film poster and a film review page to assist my final short film production. I created both, by using Photoshop, which played a major role in my A1 project.

Here is a plan for my film poster, i found this very useful in the planning and researching stage.



Film Poster



I followed a typical convention lay out. For example, title, and production company and producers in small print at the bottom of the poster. I used the "Smudge tool" on the victim's face, to make it look more effective and sinister.

Here is a plan for my film poster, i found this very useful in the planning and researching stage.



Here is my Film Review Page



As you can see i wanted to create a conventional lay out, which would look good in a film magazine. I used a Location image, so that the image would not give away too much of the narrative. However to make i look more effective i changed the lighting on the image. I also used "stars" on my film review page, as it is very conventional. When writing the quotes, i used Famous names of the film industry, to give a more professional feel to my film review page.

Thursday 28 April 2011

EVALUATION QUESTIONS

These are the questions which i have to address in my evaluation.

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

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

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

Thursday 21 April 2011

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Audience feedback is essential to any film producer. Audience feedback informs film producers whether or not their film will be a success. I, as producer of my short film production "Flashback" chose to aim the film at consumers aged 15 and over. I made decisions which i thought were appropiate and which may influence success for my short film.

In order to recieve audience feedback for my final product, we gathered 30 students into a room, where we then screened our short film. They then carried out questionnaires based on the following screening of our film.

Results from my audience feedback questionnaire, told me that not everyone agreed that the film should be certified as 15, and that they did not agree, that a range of camera angles or locations had been used.











In order to get a wider audience, i posted my final product on the social networking site, "Facebook". Here is some feedback which i recieved from friends on feedback:

"Its mint that video Tasha, honestly!!" - Rachel Gillis

"Quite good" - Enxhi Vyshka

"Really good" - Lauren Dimmick

"Eee thats really good" - Lauren Jairath

"You could of had some close up shots switching back and forth to each speaker at each conversation. When the car was driving down, you should have stopped panning and let the car drive past the camera, not a bad start though" - Tony
Ly


"Your short film is really good, well done" - Alex Henry

"Well done....Really loved it...car crash bit was espicially good" - John Gardiner

I believe that audience feedback is more important that a film director's thoughts, as a film can not be succesful without the support of their consumers.

Overall i am very happy with the feedback which my final product recieved. I believe everyone was very honest while giving feedback.

We also recorded some of the audience's responses, here they are.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Film Name Questionnaire

Me and Rachel as a group, were very unsure on what Name to use for our short film. So we came up with a Questionnaire to help us. Here are the Questionnaire results.

Stop! - 15%

The Walk
– 30%

The Mile – 5 %

Flashback – 50%

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Todorov's narrative theory



We have been using Todorov's theory alongside our film production. We are currently working at the Disruption stage of events.

Target Audience

I believe our short film, will be aiming at ages 15 and above. I think this is an acceptable age because some viewers may find some scenes disturbing.

Monday 7 February 2011

House scene

We got several shots in the boyfriends house when he was trying to get intouch with rachel. We were very happy with the effort we put into this filming. However when we got back to the classroom we realised that there was a really bad shadow on Connor's face. Which means we are going to have to reshoot this scene sometime.

03/02/2011

On the above date, we tried to film the hit and run scene. However because of heavy rain all day, this made it impossible to film. We did manage to get a quick shot of rachel stepping infront of the car. When we played the shot back we realised a cyclist riding past. This was really annoying, as the shot would of been very effective without the cyclist being in the frame.

We have decided to postpone filming this scene until 10/02/2011. To avoid any weather disruptions we have checked next weeks weather forecast, and thursday is going to be "Sunny intervals" :)

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Actors Profiles

Natasha Rutherford
Plays the role of: Driver
Age: 17
Studies: Performance Studies, Media Studies and Business Studies
Hobbies/Interests: Reading, Swimming and going to the cinema.








Rachel Burns
Plays the role of: Hit and Run Vitctim and girlfriend.
Age: 18
Studies: Media Studies, English Language and English Literature
Hobbies/Interests: Reading and socialising with friends.















Connor Huntley
Plays the role of: Boyfriend
Age: 17
Studies: Media Studies, History and General studies
Hobbies/Interests: Football, basketball and rugby


















Jordan Hewison
Plays the role of: Dog Walker
Age: 17
Studies: Plastering
Hobbies: Bike-riding, Cricket, football and cooking














Racehl Gillis
Plays the role of: Car Passenger
Age: 18
Studies: ICT, Business Studies & English Literature
Hobbies: Reading, Dance, listening to music



Filming complications

We have decided to film the boyfriend scene again, as the previous filming we took of this scene, the audio was not able to be heard. Hopefully re-filming this will help us to move on to other scenes, which we need to focus on.