The Review
fUThe Film
Thursday 12 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?
For each aspect of our film, we identified ways in which we used the conventions of a short film and also if our short film developed or challenged these conventions.
In our film we stuck to the conventions when regarding camera shots and movements. Given that our film featured quite a traditional plot, in the sense that we had a soap styled plot, we wanted to stick to the more traditional shots as we felt it is what the audience would prefer. After doing some research on other short films of a similar narrative, we realised that the more traditional shots worked and displayed a familiarity that is also suggested through the family in the film. Various other films that are considered indie, tend to take a more avant garde approach because they have a target audience that will find it appealing whereas our audience will appreciate subtlety. For example, we used a close-up of the young girl’s eyes and then zoomed out. By focusing on the girls eyes we are focusing on her emotions. The audience literally get a closer view of how she may feel provoking a response of sympathy and pity. Our use of framing was also quite conventional when it came to the shot of Emma looking at the clock. As she is not centred, our attention is drawn to both her and the clock and it shows how she is waiting for her husband, making time the focus point. This again makes the audience respond with sympathy.
Unlike our camera shots, our narrative structure does not necessarily follow the conventions of a short film. Though we have followed the conventional exposition, development, complication and climax, we challenge the conventional by not having a resolution. Our choice to not have a resolution gives a sense of ambiguity to our ending. By leaving it open, there is a sense of tension which means the audience can make up their own mind and decide whether the parents will be okay or not. Allowing a sense of ambiguity to our film attracts the audience to make of the ending what they will. Suggesting a "will they, won't they?" ending, triggers the audience to
Above is a print screen from our film that shows the open ending of Torn.
When regarding sound we have followed the conventions. We used the song “Make you feel my love” by Adele. Like many other films or programmes, the song that plays in the background or foreground often links to the on-screen action. The song begins as Emma drops her head and we chose to use this as a cue as it communicates that that is the moment Emma’s character becomes more emotional and vulnerable. The song represents the feeling and emotions within the film but could be considered as quite ironic as it plays when the young girl is cutting up family photos. When we are shown the ‘heart’ we are of the understanding that her intentions were good and meaningful.
The mise en scene also follows the conventions especially when regarding costume and props. We chose our costume in order to represent the character. For example, the light purple pyjamas of the young girl highlight her innocence and the costumes of Jake and Emma (shirt and tie, blouse and trousers) represent a ‘homely’ and familiar feel. They also represent their roles; the father as the bredwinner and the mother as the homemaker. We chose to stick to the conventions in order to make the characters more relatable. The prop that was of most importance throughout the film was the scissors the young girl uses. Pairing the danger that scissors portray with the innocence of the young girl heightens the potential dangers that could happen.
Continuity is a standard convention of a short film which we have chose to follow. For example, when the girl is leaving up the stairs the camera follows her then the angle switches to us seeing her come up from the top of the stairs.
Later we cross cut the action down stairs with the mother and upstairs with the child. The frequent cross cuts represent that both characters are suffering. We also used fades at the very beginning and end of the film. I feel that the fade at the end is the most important as it lingers on and represents how the audience are still thinking and making up their own minds.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
After completing the filming and editing process of our film we were to create ancillary texts to combine with our main product. In this case, it came in the form of our film poster and our film review.
As a group we discussed how we would like our film to come across to perspective audiences. We understood it wasn’t a horror or an action and that as it was a drama we agreed the poster and review should be more sophisticated and simple. Our plot was one with a moral and was considered thought provoking and we didn’t want to detract from that by crowding the poster or review with large WordArt font and too many different colours. Keeping the look simple, we agreed, was the most effective in our case because we remained consistent with the idea that the girl’s perspective in the film was the focus and by keeping the ancillary texts low key, we established this further.
After researching various other film review magazines, through independent research we discovered Little White Lies. After looking around the magazines website we began to understand that this was a more independent magazine. It also shared the same look that we were going for and through it’s reviews, it showed that the film was the most important thing as apposed the wardrobe choices, or how famous the actors were.
The example of a review from Little White Lies shows that there is more or less an equal image : text ratio. We also paid attention to the rounded edges of the picture which added tidiness to the page which helped us in our decision that we would use this magazine as inspiration to write our review. The colours within this magazine are low key too. They stick to a black and white theme with mainly the images being in colour meaning it is simple but not boring. The font was much understated also, as it didn’t feature any unnecessary art like “swirls”. When reading the text itself, it was clear that Little White Lies are a magazine that focuses on the camera work, the narrative and how successful the film is as a whole. They’re sophisticated in their language but not too informal. It suggests that the readers are mature and a mature audience is part of our Target Audience too. The simplicity of the review, combined with our film and poster establishes a brand identity. Ours being simple and traditional conventions with a modern twist.
When it came to designing our poster the same rules applied. We included the title, a tagline and basic information without covering too much of the picture. Using the frame not only fit in with the picture theme of our film but also framed the poster making it look quite neat. We avoided using colour for the simple font we chose as, like our review, the image was the only colour on the page. This, again, made the picture the centre of attention and as the picture was of the young girl it suggested that she would be the protagonist. The poster, combined with the film is quite effective for the audience as they are able to grasp an idea of the genre of the film. Also by centering the child in the poster, suggests the child is being isolated. This poster acts as a foreshadow for what is to be expected in the film.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?
Here is a list of the technologies we used throughout the entire process:
HD Flip Camera
Internet –
Blogger.com
Dafont.com
Google.com
LittleWhiteLies.com
Adobe Premier Editing Software
Macromedia Fireworks 8
Using the Internet had huge advantages as it allowed us easy access to pictures to use as examples and inspiration for much of our ancillary texts like our poster for example. It allowed us to access more fonts than the ones that were available to us through WordArt. Using this was an advantage as it gave us more options enabling us to find a font most suitable for our poster.
Most of the technologies we used throughout the process had great advantages, including the Film Editing Programme we used. This allowed us to look more closely at our film and any continuity errors we had made. By using this programme, we were able to add much more advanced tricks that are impossible to do with just a camera for example the fade in and fade out we used. In turn, the editing allowed the story to flow also and perhaps made it more affective to the audience.
However, this is the one technology that had the most disadvantages as is set up many difficulties. During lessons in which we were editing, often the programme would take a while to download our files and when it would start, often the footage would jump/skip whilst we were editing the cuts between scenes. The jumping interfered mainly when it came to us including the fade it. As it jumped, it was unclear how long the fade lasted and if it was affective at all. However, we overcome this issue by using the time line scale instead of the scene one at the bottom of the screen. By using the timeline, we were able to estimate how many seconds would be suitable for a fade in. So despite us not being able to tell when viewing back, we were confident that we solved the issue through over means.
We also another media technology in the case of Fireworks in order to edit the image we used for our poster. As I have mentioned before in my blog, we used Firework tools such as the blur, smudge and sharpen tool. These were a huge advantage to have as it enabled us to blur the background surrounding girl, making her the focus point and also symbolically suggesting that everything around her is 'a blur' and she can't make sense of it all which gives the audience a further idea of the plot of the film.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After completing the entire filming and editing process of our short film Torn, we were eager to hear feedback from a mixed gender audience.
We were pleased to hear that most, if not all, of the audience were of the understanding that the genre of the film was Drama and that they understood what the film was about and were able to follow the storyline easily. When asked "Do you think the film has an ideological message and if so what is it?" the majority's response was "to consider others around you" and that "children are affected when parents argue".
The song we used to accompany the film was "Make you feel my love" by Adele. We were also very pleased to hear that everyone felt that it was "an emotional song that matched the story" and also that the song choice made them "feel for the characters". It was important for us to communicate a sense of sympathy for the characters ecspecially the young girl Rachel. We wanted the audience to sympathise with her in particular and as the audience felt the moral of the film was to be more considerate of the child, I feel we succeeded.
When asked "what was effective about the camera angles?" some responded, pointing out the effectivness of showing the child through the banisters on the stairs. They also appreciated the variety of shots that we offered.
We also offered them a chance to offer some constructive criticsm by asking them what they thought was weak about the film and do they have any suggestions to improve it? Those who answered this question said that it would have been better with more dialogue and they also commented on the visual quality as in sometimes, the picture was blurry and also the quality of the music as they mentioned it was too loud. Unfortuately, due to editing, the picture can often become less clear than it originally was. This is another example of a problem that we overcame.
What was interesting to see is that we had a more positive reaction and a clearer response from the female audience which suggests that this film is one that is more female orientated and would be more appreciated by a female audience.
We also had a chance to interview a few of our peers and filmed their response. It was good to get a response from an older audience as, you can tell from the video, their response is much more mature and that understand the aims of our director.
For each aspect of our film, we identified ways in which we used the conventions of a short film and also if our short film developed or challenged these conventions.
In our film we stuck to the conventions when regarding camera shots and movements. Given that our film featured quite a traditional plot, in the sense that we had a soap styled plot, we wanted to stick to the more traditional shots as we felt it is what the audience would prefer. After doing some research on other short films of a similar narrative, we realised that the more traditional shots worked and displayed a familiarity that is also suggested through the family in the film. Various other films that are considered indie, tend to take a more avant garde approach because they have a target audience that will find it appealing whereas our audience will appreciate subtlety. For example, we used a close-up of the young girl’s eyes and then zoomed out. By focusing on the girls eyes we are focusing on her emotions. The audience literally get a closer view of how she may feel provoking a response of sympathy and pity. Our use of framing was also quite conventional when it came to the shot of Emma looking at the clock. As she is not centred, our attention is drawn to both her and the clock and it shows how she is waiting for her husband, making time the focus point. This again makes the audience respond with sympathy.
Unlike our camera shots, our narrative structure does not necessarily follow the conventions of a short film. Though we have followed the conventional exposition, development, complication and climax, we challenge the conventional by not having a resolution. Our choice to not have a resolution gives a sense of ambiguity to our ending. By leaving it open, there is a sense of tension which means the audience can make up their own mind and decide whether the parents will be okay or not. Allowing a sense of ambiguity to our film attracts the audience to make of the ending what they will. Suggesting a "will they, won't they?" ending, triggers the audience to
Above is a print screen from our film that shows the open ending of Torn.
When regarding sound we have followed the conventions. We used the song “Make you feel my love” by Adele. Like many other films or programmes, the song that plays in the background or foreground often links to the on-screen action. The song begins as Emma drops her head and we chose to use this as a cue as it communicates that that is the moment Emma’s character becomes more emotional and vulnerable. The song represents the feeling and emotions within the film but could be considered as quite ironic as it plays when the young girl is cutting up family photos. When we are shown the ‘heart’ we are of the understanding that her intentions were good and meaningful.
The mise en scene also follows the conventions especially when regarding costume and props. We chose our costume in order to represent the character. For example, the light purple pyjamas of the young girl highlight her innocence and the costumes of Jake and Emma (shirt and tie, blouse and trousers) represent a ‘homely’ and familiar feel. They also represent their roles; the father as the bredwinner and the mother as the homemaker. We chose to stick to the conventions in order to make the characters more relatable. The prop that was of most importance throughout the film was the scissors the young girl uses. Pairing the danger that scissors portray with the innocence of the young girl heightens the potential dangers that could happen.
Continuity is a standard convention of a short film which we have chose to follow. For example, when the girl is leaving up the stairs the camera follows her then the angle switches to us seeing her come up from the top of the stairs.
Later we cross cut the action down stairs with the mother and upstairs with the child. The frequent cross cuts represent that both characters are suffering. We also used fades at the very beginning and end of the film. I feel that the fade at the end is the most important as it lingers on and represents how the audience are still thinking and making up their own minds.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
After completing the filming and editing process of our film we were to create ancillary texts to combine with our main product. In this case, it came in the form of our film poster and our film review.
As a group we discussed how we would like our film to come across to perspective audiences. We understood it wasn’t a horror or an action and that as it was a drama we agreed the poster and review should be more sophisticated and simple. Our plot was one with a moral and was considered thought provoking and we didn’t want to detract from that by crowding the poster or review with large WordArt font and too many different colours. Keeping the look simple, we agreed, was the most effective in our case because we remained consistent with the idea that the girl’s perspective in the film was the focus and by keeping the ancillary texts low key, we established this further.
After researching various other film review magazines, through independent research we discovered Little White Lies. After looking around the magazines website we began to understand that this was a more independent magazine. It also shared the same look that we were going for and through it’s reviews, it showed that the film was the most important thing as apposed the wardrobe choices, or how famous the actors were.
The example of a review from Little White Lies shows that there is more or less an equal image : text ratio. We also paid attention to the rounded edges of the picture which added tidiness to the page which helped us in our decision that we would use this magazine as inspiration to write our review. The colours within this magazine are low key too. They stick to a black and white theme with mainly the images being in colour meaning it is simple but not boring. The font was much understated also, as it didn’t feature any unnecessary art like “swirls”. When reading the text itself, it was clear that Little White Lies are a magazine that focuses on the camera work, the narrative and how successful the film is as a whole. They’re sophisticated in their language but not too informal. It suggests that the readers are mature and a mature audience is part of our Target Audience too. The simplicity of the review, combined with our film and poster establishes a brand identity. Ours being simple and traditional conventions with a modern twist.
When it came to designing our poster the same rules applied. We included the title, a tagline and basic information without covering too much of the picture. Using the frame not only fit in with the picture theme of our film but also framed the poster making it look quite neat. We avoided using colour for the simple font we chose as, like our review, the image was the only colour on the page. This, again, made the picture the centre of attention and as the picture was of the young girl it suggested that she would be the protagonist. The poster, combined with the film is quite effective for the audience as they are able to grasp an idea of the genre of the film. Also by centering the child in the poster, suggests the child is being isolated. This poster acts as a foreshadow for what is to be expected in the film.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?
Here is a list of the technologies we used throughout the entire process:
HD Flip Camera
Internet –
Blogger.com
Dafont.com
Google.com
LittleWhiteLies.com
Adobe Premier Editing Software
Macromedia Fireworks 8
Using the Internet had huge advantages as it allowed us easy access to pictures to use as examples and inspiration for much of our ancillary texts like our poster for example. It allowed us to access more fonts than the ones that were available to us through WordArt. Using this was an advantage as it gave us more options enabling us to find a font most suitable for our poster.
Most of the technologies we used throughout the process had great advantages, including the Film Editing Programme we used. This allowed us to look more closely at our film and any continuity errors we had made. By using this programme, we were able to add much more advanced tricks that are impossible to do with just a camera for example the fade in and fade out we used. In turn, the editing allowed the story to flow also and perhaps made it more affective to the audience.
However, this is the one technology that had the most disadvantages as is set up many difficulties. During lessons in which we were editing, often the programme would take a while to download our files and when it would start, often the footage would jump/skip whilst we were editing the cuts between scenes. The jumping interfered mainly when it came to us including the fade it. As it jumped, it was unclear how long the fade lasted and if it was affective at all. However, we overcome this issue by using the time line scale instead of the scene one at the bottom of the screen. By using the timeline, we were able to estimate how many seconds would be suitable for a fade in. So despite us not being able to tell when viewing back, we were confident that we solved the issue through over means.
We also another media technology in the case of Fireworks in order to edit the image we used for our poster. As I have mentioned before in my blog, we used Firework tools such as the blur, smudge and sharpen tool. These were a huge advantage to have as it enabled us to blur the background surrounding girl, making her the focus point and also symbolically suggesting that everything around her is 'a blur' and she can't make sense of it all which gives the audience a further idea of the plot of the film.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After completing the entire filming and editing process of our short film Torn, we were eager to hear feedback from a mixed gender audience.
We were pleased to hear that most, if not all, of the audience were of the understanding that the genre of the film was Drama and that they understood what the film was about and were able to follow the storyline easily. When asked "Do you think the film has an ideological message and if so what is it?" the majority's response was "to consider others around you" and that "children are affected when parents argue".
The song we used to accompany the film was "Make you feel my love" by Adele. We were also very pleased to hear that everyone felt that it was "an emotional song that matched the story" and also that the song choice made them "feel for the characters". It was important for us to communicate a sense of sympathy for the characters ecspecially the young girl Rachel. We wanted the audience to sympathise with her in particular and as the audience felt the moral of the film was to be more considerate of the child, I feel we succeeded.
When asked "what was effective about the camera angles?" some responded, pointing out the effectivness of showing the child through the banisters on the stairs. They also appreciated the variety of shots that we offered.
We also offered them a chance to offer some constructive criticsm by asking them what they thought was weak about the film and do they have any suggestions to improve it? Those who answered this question said that it would have been better with more dialogue and they also commented on the visual quality as in sometimes, the picture was blurry and also the quality of the music as they mentioned it was too loud. Unfortuately, due to editing, the picture can often become less clear than it originally was. This is another example of a problem that we overcame.
What was interesting to see is that we had a more positive reaction and a clearer response from the female audience which suggests that this film is one that is more female orientated and would be more appreciated by a female audience.
We also had a chance to interview a few of our peers and filmed their response. It was good to get a response from an older audience as, you can tell from the video, their response is much more mature and that understand the aims of our director.
Friday 26 November 2010
REVIEW: Editing final product
When editing our final product we not only had to edit scenes and cut and paste various clips and add in music but we also had to edit our film review.
When creating and editing our final draft of our film review:
We ensured that the text was in-line
Making sure the text boxes were the same size
Rounded the edges of the picture to fit the style of Little White Lies
Including their logo
Including ratings on right hand side
Fitting our writing to suit the style of LWL
When creating and editing our final draft of our film review:
We ensured that the text was in-line
Making sure the text boxes were the same size
Rounded the edges of the picture to fit the style of Little White Lies
Including their logo
Including ratings on right hand side
Fitting our writing to suit the style of LWL
Above, is a printscreen of the process of our first draft of our review. As you can see we continued with our simplistic colour scheme and kept the page as uncluttered as possible. However, we took into consideration that too much white space on the page makes it look empty and not as realistic. After looking into more examples of Little White Lies magazine we began to adjust the page layout to create this:
REVIEW: Drafting layout
In order to fit the style of Little White Lies, we had to incorporate their style into our review.
We noticed that they're very precise on the equal sizings of their collumns and they're very simplistic font.
REVIEW: Choosing most appropriate images
This is the image that we used for the film review. This is the very last shot of the film and, in our opinion, the most interesting due to it's ambiguity. It will capture the readers interest and make them wonder what has happened for them to look like this.
I also find the framing of the picture quite interesting. We purposly made sure that they were on either side of the frame to form some sort of symmetry. We wanted them to appear as equals towards the end to indicate that what happened between them was a question that was mutual.
Having the symmetry also made the page design for the review appear tidier and gave it that sophisticated review we were aiming for also. We used Little White Lies as our magazine to write a review for so it was important to design a page with equal sophistication and simplicity.
Here is an example of a review from Little White Lies.
REVIEW: Drafting text
As we had various ideas and we knew we would have to take the time positioning the text, we took it upon ourselves to brainstorm and simply bullet point ideas we had. We would later edit them to suit the style of the review magazine we chose. (Little White Lies)
http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/
-----
"However, credit must be shared, not just by the director and her technicians but with the performers too. The combination of Jake Taylor’s natural charisma and Emma Walsh’s heartfelt performance with a subtle yet mature narrative, make for a moving tale. Rebecca Winter captures the impressionable disposition of a young girl yet displays an understanding way beyond her years.
Though this film may not offer the clichéd fairytale ending that some hope for, it is the dramatic ambiguity that makes Torn emotive and self-reflective. But despite the unconventional denouement, the inevitable love between the parents is clear through stolen moments of tenderness.
· intrusive camerawork
· result is of substained skill and subtlety
· resembles with ‘fly-on-the-wall’ aspect in which we are presented with the ongoings in the family home and behind closed doors"
http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/
-----
"However, credit must be shared, not just by the director and her technicians but with the performers too. The combination of Jake Taylor’s natural charisma and Emma Walsh’s heartfelt performance with a subtle yet mature narrative, make for a moving tale. Rebecca Winter captures the impressionable disposition of a young girl yet displays an understanding way beyond her years.
Though this film may not offer the clichéd fairytale ending that some hope for, it is the dramatic ambiguity that makes Torn emotive and self-reflective. But despite the unconventional denouement, the inevitable love between the parents is clear through stolen moments of tenderness.
· intrusive camerawork
· result is of substained skill and subtlety
· resembles with ‘fly-on-the-wall’ aspect in which we are presented with the ongoings in the family home and behind closed doors"
REVIEW: Researching different magzine audience's
Different magazines have different target audience's and as a group we had to research various magazines that would suit our style of film and our target audience.
According to http://www.fhm-international.com/mediakits/471EA25F13.pdf, "FHM is a multi-platform 18-39 channel". In a magazine the picture is the main focus. Though this paticular article is taken from http://fhm.com/, the video of the trailer to "Inglorious Basterds" dominates the page. Again showing that the text is not too important.
According to reports the readers of Empire are 76% male. But unlike FHM, Empire is an established movie magazine but with the percentage being mostly male orientated, it appears the films it reviews are generally of the genre that appeals to most men.
Knowing that neither of these are what we are looking for we did our own independent research into what magazine would be best suited to our film. As a group we decided that we wanted our review to feature in a film magazine as apposed to a generalist magazine. After doing our research we discovered the magazine Little White Lies. http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/
Knowing that neither of these are what we are looking for we did our own independent research into what magazine would be best suited to our film. As a group we decided that we wanted our review to feature in a film magazine as apposed to a generalist magazine. After doing our research we discovered the magazine Little White Lies. http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/
This is a cover of Little White Lies. It's more artistic and sophisticated which indicates that the target audience will appreciate films that have a sophisticated plot, similar to ours.
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