Evaluation (Becky)

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

My media A2 advanced portfolio consists of three tasks or products. These include my main task of the short film and both ancillary tasks 1 and 2 which consist of a film poster and a review of my film for 'Little White Lies' magazine. All three of my products convey and form to the conventions of a real media product as well as challenging and developing them.

In our project, we had to create a short film wit ha genre that we would have to choose. In order to create this film we had to fully understand the forms and conventions of a real short film product so that we could use them to help us gather ideas on how to develop our own short film.

  

To do this i studied many short films whilst analysing them to find the common codes and conventions of this type of film, whether it being mise en scene, cinematography, editing or sound. Real short film products have many forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged in our product to successfully convey a short film.

A)- The Main Task- Short Film

Short Film: 'A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film' around 5-10 Min in length.

i- Films that I have watched.

Before creating our film, we had to undergo a lot of research into other shorts films as they are quite different to feature length films. Although all short films are unique in their own way, there are common conventions that they all share including: 

• Narrative organisation & short film format
• Camerawork 
• Sound
• Editing/post production 
• Mise En Scene
• Use of genre conventions 
• Themes and Issues 

Real short film products have many forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged in our product to successfully convey a short film with a thriller genre.

I recently watch multiple real short film product in order to gather the typical codes and conventions of a short film that I would then need to include in my own product. One real short film I analysed to found these features was a short film called 'Connection', which shows a struggling homeless man that gets himself in an awkward situation between two bystanders.

This short film can be found on the Virgin Media Shorts Website. (Link Bellow)

http://virginmediashorts.com/film/5416/connection#.VLbBQiusVk8

Throughout the early stages of my planning for my short film product, I researched many real short film media products and considered what the typical features of these short films are in order to apply them to my own media product of a thriller genre short film.

There are many similarities and differences between my own short film media product and a real one, allowing my film to be both unique as well as conventional of a typical thriller short film genre that appeals to my target audience demographic of young male adults.

I used many camera work techniques from real media products/ short films and carried them forward into my own product. These techniques include, but are not limited to ECU shots, close ups, low angles, shot reverse shot sequences, fast paced cutting shots and many more.

During my research or real short film products, I discovered that there are many camera work techniques that are conventional of the thriller genre that I would need to further study and include in my own product.

MRANG: Short Film-'Connection'

Media Language

Camera Work:

ECU eye level shot of zips on male characters sleeping bag are used to hide or conceal the identity of the character from the spectator allowing them to guess what they may look like and their status in society.

ECU eye level shot of zips

ECU of the characters face

In this case the character is homeless. The camera pans up the body of the man in the sleeping bag until it stops at an ECU of the characters face. In this low angle shot we can tell that the character may be homeless as we can see he is wearing a worn out beanie hat and his face is clearly unshaven, suggesting that he does not have the money to purchase or retain the products to shave properly. This ECU is also used to convey the characters emotions and in this shot we can see he appears tired or restless. This could mean that he has had a bad nights sleep possibly due to sleeping on a concrete floor on the street.

Canted shot

Canted shots give and unsteadiness to the frame, giving both the homeless character and the spectator  a canted angle the camera is tilted on its horizontal plane to produce a slightly unstable picture. This suggests a feeling of excitement and suspense.

Mise en Scene:

ELS

Costume: The homeless characters costume is very simplistic. He wears a worn out beanie And wraps himself up in a dirty blue sleeping bag, both stereotypical of a homeless person. The character appears not to have shaved, suggesting he does not have the money to do so. This adds to the appearance that this man is homeless as a stereotypical homeless citizen would be clearly unshaven and untidy in their appearance. This also suggests he is of little wealth and a lower class status.

Low Angle

 Both the standing male and female characters are dressed smartly, the male in a grey suit and tie and the female in a more casual suited outfit. By the male being in a suit and tie it suggests to the spectator that his character is of a high status and may retain a better wealth than the homeless man. Suits suggest a middle class to upper class person who may work in an office or for a well paid industry business. His hair is well groomed and appears to have some sort of salon product on it. This suggests that this character has money to spend of luxuries unlike the homeless male character that looks like he hasn't shaved in weeks. The suited male character also has a beard, however it is well trimmed and tidy in comparison to the homeless man, once again pointing out the difference in wealth and class of the characters.

Medium Shot of Female Character

The female character is dressed in a smart/ casual outfit, with a dark navy woman's jacket/blazer, burgundy red blouse, diamond like earings, dark graphite jeans and a light beige brown bag that straps across her torso. Her costume conveys that she is of a middle class status and dresses to please. Items such as her earings communicate her wealth as they look expensive. This suggests that she is of a similar class as the suited gentleman as she would have to have a well paid job to earn the money it would cost to purchase those earings. Her jacket also makes her look of a higher status as she looks smart and well dressed. Her hair is in loose salon looking curls conveying that she likes to keep her hair healthy with expensive beauty products adding to her wealth and status in comparison to the homeless male character.

Lighting: Lighting throughout this short film gives a sense of realism as naturalistic lighting is used to convey a realistic outdoor setting as well as communicate the time of day to the spectator.

Props: A paper coffee cup is placed in front of the homeless character to convey to the audience that he is homeless by suggesting that he is begging for money rather than having paid for a drink.

Body Language: The homeless characters body language is hunched over suggesting concealment or vulnerability. Perhaps the character is scared and therefore finds the need to hide away in his sleeping bag.

 The male and female characters standing up have good posture and presence, suggesting that they haven't had a hard life on the street like the homeless man and they feel more confidant to communicate to others.

Scared Facial Expression

Facial Expression: The homeless characters facial expression appear scared in the beginning of the short film where he sits alone. This may be because he is scared of communication with other people. His expression changes when our other two characters enter the scene as he appears to find their hopeless flirting amusing and comedic. This may suggest that he is lacking entertainment and uses other peoples conversations to amuse himself.

Amused Facial Expression

Colour: Desaturated colours surrounding the homeless character suggest that he is being confined into a small area and that because he is of such poverty he is not welcome outside of his little bubble.

The bright blue colour of his sleeping bag creates a focus point for the spectator letting them know that hes the one that they should be watching. The sleeping bag also allows the character to stand out from the dull concrete background and setting.

Setting/Location: The short film is set in one location only allowing the spectator to focus on what is actually happening in the scene than the surroundings. The graffitied backgrounds suggest that this is a low class estate and it is an unhealthy neighborhood.

The concrete floor in which the homeless many supposedly sleeps on is filthy and untidy just like the character, adding to the fact that he hasn't shaved or showered in weeks and conveying the stereotype of a homeless citizen.

Composition: The two characters of higher status both stand in the film whilst the homeless man in poverty is lower down in the frame. This suggests that they are of a higher class or power than him and that they are more important in society than him as he is only homeless and they look down on him. Also eye level shots of the homeless man show him sandwiched between both of the standing characters. This suggests that he is being squished by them as he is of less importance. This conveys his vulnerability to the spectator making them sympathize for him.

Homeless Character picking up money/penny

Sound:The non-diegetic sound effect or foley of a coin dropping onto the concrete floor is paired with a cross camera movement to show the importance of the money to the homeless man.

The characters dialogue between each other suggests to the spectator that the film is set in an Irish town or city area. . The director has chosen this accent as it comes across as soft and non threatening to both spectator and the homeless character.

Representation

Age: The age of the homeless character is shown through his costume. His beard creates a sense of ageing as bearded men are stereotypical of an male age group of 30+.

Class: The male and female characters standing up have good posture and presence, suggesting that they haven't had a hard life on the street like the homeless man and they feel more confidant to communicate to others and suggests that they have possibly come from a upper class area.

 Both the standing male and female characters are dressed smartly, the male in a grey suit and tie and the female in a more casual suited outfit. By the male being in a suit and tie it suggests to the spectator that his character is of a high status and may retain a better wealth than the homeless man. Suits suggest a middle class to upper class person who may work in an office or for a well paid industry business. His hair is well groomed and appears to have some sort of salon product on it. This suggests that this character has money to spend of luxuries unlike the homeless male character that looks like he hasn't shaved in weeks.

Regional Identity: The characters dialogue between each other suggests to the spectator that the film is set in an Irish town or city area. 

Audience: 

This film allows a lower class spectator/audience to feel sympathy and  sympathy and compassion for the homeless male character as they may understand what his is going through or might also have  less money than higher classes. 

I believe that this film is mainly aimed or targeted as upper classes as it aims to teach them and shows why they should not look down on the lower classes of society and those less wealthy than they may be.

Narrative: 

There is a simple linear narrative in this short film combined with a restricted narrative concealing identity of characters and the regional identity of the setting in the film.

 The spectator does not know the gender of the homeless character until the camera pans up onto a ECU of his face. Nothing about all three characters background stories is revealed in this short film, we as an audience do not know how this man came to be homeless and the other two became upper class citizens. The film is open ended, the director has done this so the spectator came use their own imagination to how the the characters went their separate ways and how their lives pan out. . There is also an ellipses at the beginning when the fade is used to show the passing of time. This narrative conveys the Bordwell and Thompson's theory successfully. 

Genre: 

The genre of this film is Drama as it contains many of the typical codes and conventions that would be found in this genre.  Angles such as Low angle and high angle shots convey differences between each character, showing those who have power over others. In this case the standing characters have power over the homeless man as they look down on him.

ii- My Own Short Film

During my research or real short film products, I discovered that there are many camera work techniques that are conventional of the thriller genre that I would need to further study and include in my own product. We decided to make our short film a thriller genre as we as a group have researched and studied this genre thoroughly in AS Level and therefore we would be able to take the skills and knowledge of the genre forward and apply them to our A2 short film. 

Media Language

Camera Work:

ECU Medical Equipment

ECU Medical Equipment /Character

ECU shots of a hospital theatre scene in which one of my characters appears in a coma   is used to hide or conceal the identity of the character from the spectator allowing them to guess what they may look like and their status in society and what injuries they may have sustained. This camera work technique uses the conventions of a real media product, such short film 'Connection', which conforms to a successful short film. 

Characters

In this case the character is an 18 year old female in coma due to a serious drink and drive car accident. The camera pulls in and out of focus on multiple pieces of medical equipment suggesting a slight dizziness or concussion, due to the character being in the coma, a spectator then feels as though they are in the characters situation and they empathize with them. This technique is used in other films of the thriller genre which means that my media product conforms to the codes and conventions of a real media product.    

 up the body of the man in the sleeping bag until it stops at an ECU of the characters face. In this low angle shot we can tell that the character may be homeless as we can see he is wearing a worn out beanie hat and his face is clearly unshaven, suggesting that he does not have the money to purchase or retain the products to shave properly. This ECU is also used to convey the characters emotions and in this shot we can see he appears tired or restless. This could mean that he has had a bad nights sleep possibly due to sleeping on a concrete floor on the street.

Canted shots give and unsteadiness to the frame, giving both the characters and the spectator  a canted angle the camera is tilted on its horizontal plane to produce a slightly unstable picture. This suggests a feeling of excitement and suspense which forms to the conventions of a real thriller genre.

Mise en Scene

Costume: The main  characters costume is very simplistic, however, very effective in conveying the characters stereotypical age, class and other representation of a 18 year old female. She wears , both stereotypical of a homeless person. The character appears not to have shaved, suggesting he does not have the money to do so. This adds to the appearance that this man is homeless as a stereotypical homeless citizen would be clearly unshaven and untidy in their appearance. This also suggests he is of little wealth and a lower class status.

Narrative-  

We decided on a restricted narrative to lead the audience to not know what exactly happened until Sophie is out of the coma. This creates suspense and forces the audience to ask questions as the plot unravels.

The use of flashbacks are used as memories of the accident indicates to the audience visually the story of what has happened. This gives my short film product a slight non-linear narrative twist.

Flashbacks recreate the order of scenes and sequences. This produces a whole different atmosphere and theme to a film. It effects how the audience perceive the characters in relation to the film and also the role of the audience themselves. Flashbacks are also used to give more purpose to the film. If our plot had been shown to the audience as a linear narrative, the suspense and confusion would be taken away, giving less purpose to the film.

The story/synopsis of our film is (short version) how two girls who have a night out drinking, decide to drink drive home. They then take place in an car accident, in which the bestfriend 'Lucy' dies. 'Sophie' this character driving, is then taken to hospital who then falls into a coma. When she wakes up she realises what has happened.

Plot version - A female character is lying in  a hospital bed in a coma. The audience then relives the reason how she became there, finding out this girl 'Sophie' was drunk driving and was in an accident with her bestfriend'. When she wakes up she realises it was her fault for killing her bestfriend and a policeman is standing at the side of her bed.

Todorovs 5 Stages of Narrative

Our story closely follows todorovs narrative theory however our plot does not due to the rearrangement of scenes :

1. A state of equilibrium - girls out on a night out at pub location.

2. A disruption of that order by an event - decide to drunk drive from pub.

3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred - the girls have a car accident where one dies and other is seriously injured.

4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption - Sophie wakes up in hospital alive after being in a coma.

5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium - The policeman is standing at the side of the bed, so justice will be served.

However, I do not believe the was closure due to the distress of her friend dying because of her careless awearness and lack of judgement.

Semantic codes - 

visual codes that have match on action with pub and car accident scenes.

hand with drip - portrays the girl is in hospital and unwell

• pub - shows the characters have been drinking
• car - conveys getting in a car drunk they are likely to have an accident
• eyes - The zoom in of closed eyes throughout conveys she is in a coma

Levi Strauss Binary Oppositions:

• Right/wrong - because of the aspect of drink driving

Genre- 

The genre of my film is specifically thriller as it has conventions of that genre, however it could also be considered a hybrid of crime-thriller due to the criminal offence of drink driving and the location of a hospital, although there are no chase scenes/ detective investigations that would fully make it a crime genre film.

Poster ancillary 1

My Poster Design

The Use of Mes en Scene in my poster design conforms to that of a typical medical thriller, in this case, i took the holby city title theme design and used ele in bmy draft short film poster is typical of hybrid hospital thriller shuch as british televison series Holby city and Casualty. This style of effects and colour filters is used in the tv shows title sequence.

audience

ideas from holby and casualty

+ sign

Review ancillary 2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Transcript:

I feel as though my A2 Advanced Portfolio as a whole, including the short film, poster and review for Little White Lies magazine work well together and would make a substantial real media product in the real world. Both the ancillary tasks one and two of the review and poster work well together in helping the promotion and marketing aspects for our short film product of a thriller genre. With these two tasks, i worked closely on aspects and conventions of real poster and review products to include in my own products that would appeal to my audience demographic. This was a very important step in the promotional process of our portfolio as we were unable to create a trailer for our short film to advertise our product to our audience, which is used by many feature length films; whether that being an Independent product or not.
Before the constructional process of my products, we needed to decide on an appropriate target audience so that we could ensure that all of our products would appeal to the desired audience of our film product. After much deliberation, we as a group decided on an appropriate target audience of 17-25 year old male and females as we thought this would most suit them due to the themes, issues and situations in our short film.  

I thought through the construction process of my film poster product very carefully, to ensure that it linked well to the short film without giving too much away to the spectator of the plot and story before they watch it. Prior to creating our own individual posters in our group, we carried out research on real short film posters to gather the codes and conventions of the posters to ensure that our product would symbolize that of a real media products and identifiable as a film poster by using the conventions to our advantage in targeting our audience.

one of the main conventions or codes of our poster that we gathered from other short film posters is that the title of the film should stand out in comparison to other aspects in the poster so that it appears most noticeable to the spectator. I made sure that my title was the biggest aspect on the poster in a large font that matched the titling in our film opening credits and so that the audience would be automatically drawn to it and remember it. I decided to go with the font that i choose as i believe it was appropriate for the medical aspect of our thriller film when the girl is in a coma. this worked well as it stood out well against the darker back ground of the poster as it was an off white colour. I decided this as the titling in our film was lighter than the background and i wanted to mirror this in my poster so that the two products would link well together as well as matching the colour pallet of the hospital scenes in our film to the poster background.

I found that using the same font style and colour throughout all three of my products helped to commercialize and link them together in an effective way that helped to increase the marketing of my short film and allowed me to somewhat create a 'brand' for my film, which helped to ensure that people would associate all of the products with each other.
An example of where this has been used in a real media product can be seen in 'Bend it Like Beckham', a poster i previously analysed in question one. the poster shows thick block font letters in a lime green colour which is then used in the title sequence of the film.

I believe that it is clear that our film is of the thriller genre due to the suspenseful scenes, giving the spectator a sense of what they can expect without giving away too much of the plot or story. This was essential to convey this in my film poster to connect the two products together. This also link with my film review as we mentioned thriller aspects and descriptive  words that convey the thriller genre. In addition, our review for Little White Lies magazine allowed the audience to read the review thoroughly meaning on their own, they could connect the products together.

I believe that my products all link well together, symbolising that of a real media product. This meant that my portfolio as a whole successfully formed to the conventions i needed from real products to imply a independent thriller short film.  

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

To gather audience feedback, i used social networking sites such as facebook and twitter, where i shared a link to all stages of my portfolio so that the public could review each step of my planning and construction stages of all my products.

i sent out the links for my products to those who fitted my target audience of 17 to 25 years as i wanted to know what aspects of my project appealed to them, as well as to find out what improvements i needed to make to all three of my products to make it more suitable and pleasing for my audience demographic.

To achieve this, i sent a link off to friends on facebook as they are of my age which fitted the audience demographic, and asked them to write back to me, telling me the strengths and weaknesses of each product as well as any improvements i may have needed in order to convey a successful product.

With the feedback i received, i learnt that i needed my poster to appeal more to a female audience, meaning i had to change the colour themes of all products to make it more appealing to both genders.

I chose to use white text/ font not only because it stands out against the background, because it is a neutral colour, meaning it is attractive to both genders as it doesn't scream either mescaline or feminine as it falls somewhere between.

in the planning stages, we waved around the idea of all the characters being male, however audience feedback suggested that as the film is already a thriller, which mostly appeals to the male gender, it would be a good idea to make both characters female to appeal to the female audience as the film is then female driven whilst being a male favoured thriller genre, so it appeals to both genders.

with the use of audience feedback, i also learned that i needed to change the age of my audience demographic as age 16 + was just to young to understand the themes and issues of drink driving in my film, i then changed it to 17- 25 years.

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

Bellow is a presentation i created on Prezi.com that shows how i used new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages: