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Thursday, 14 April 2011

Evaluation


Out of the 7 briefs, I decided to choose the brief below: A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options: - a poster for the film; - a radio trailer for the film; - a film magazine review page featuring the film. I wanted to create a short film rather than other briefs such as the film trailer or a soap trailer because I've created a trailer before and wanted to try something new. The two options which I included with my finished short film were a poster for the film and a radio trailer.


Originally, I was going to choose to do a magazine review but I’d never tried a radio trailer and wanted the challenge. My research consisted of analysing internet images and videos from YouTube as this made it easier for me to transfer on to my blog on Blogger. I found film poster images using the search engine Google, and then uploaded them on to my blog before analysing them. These included, ‘PS I Love You’, ’50 First Dates’, ‘Love Actually’ and ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. From these, I learnt that they all share similar features, such as the title of the film being the largest font, one or more images are used to promote who is appearing in the film and the colour red is the most common colour associated with romance as it connotes love and appeared on many of the film posters such as ‘Love Actually’.


Similarly, I searched on YouTube for examples of radio adverts and short films, as well as the Taylor Swift music videos that influenced my narrative, and simply embedded them on to my Blogger account. From the short films I researched, which included a variety of student-made films and professionally-made, I found that most of them used voice over’s as the narrative is often told from a one person perspective, such as the film ‘A Hopeless Romantic’; I also discovered that music is often used as it helps to set an atmosphere for the scene in a matter of seconds whilst relying on mise-en-scene and cinematography alone would take longer, such as the film ‘Memories’. From my research, I found that short films are intended to last approximately 5 – 10 minutes, which all four films I analysed had the duration of.


Unfortunately, I was unable to find any radio trailers that were directly relevant to film advertising, so instead I found many examples of food and business adverts such as ‘Subway’ and analysed their conventions. What I found may not be directly linked with film radio advertisements, however it did give me some indication as to what I should include in my radio trailer; such as a main speaker – often enthusiastic to be entertaining and interesting as well as music which underlies the dialogue to try to make it more audio interesting for the listeners.


I also did some research as to what my primary target audience of teenagers aged 13-17 would expect, so I conducted a poll on the side of my blog, posted the link onto my facebook page and requested people to vote for the options that suited them. This meant that before I even began to decide what it was I wanted to do, I was able to know what the audience wanted and could take that into account when planning my short film. From the poll, I found that the majority of the respondents were my target audience of teenagers aged between 13-17 which meant that I could assume most of the research findings appealed to them. I wanted to aim my products at this audience as I was able to get first-hand research that was easy to access (because of college) and the cast was going to be of a similar age which meant that the products I made would be more relatable and relevant to them. I didn’t have any specific type of teenage audience as I believe that most teenagers who have been in a relationship would be able to relate to this short film.


When I’d finished all my products, I created a questionnaire and asked a small group of people from my target audience to give me their feedback. From this I gained a lot of research on how my audience responded to the short film and advertising campaign of the poster and radio trailer. The majority enjoyed the film though three said that they wouldn’t opt to see it voluntarily as they don’t really enjoy the romance genre. I also kept asking opinions from my teachers and friends throughout the process so I knew whether I was developing my idea in the right way that my target audience would want.


When beginning to plan my products, I did spider diagrams to brainstorm my initial ideas. I find that by getting all of my ideas down in one place and making it visually interesting then I am able to develop and expand on ideas to make them more successful. I did plan on breaking conventions of a short film by having a same sex couple for the film, this would be make it more socially relevant as there are more public homosexual couples in today’s society than there has been before. However, I struggled to find a cast who would take these roles so had to follow the convention of having a male and female couple instead.




Storyboarding was essential to allow me to quickly glance at a sheet and know what the camera shot and mise-en-scene would look like and know how long the duration of the shot would be. However, instead of drawing each and every shot, I simply took pictures using a Samsung es57 and placed them in instead of drawing. This meant that I could also get a sense of lighting and location as well as knowing the camera shot. It took me less time to do this as I could re-use the same picture – if the camera shot was repeated – instead of having to re-draw the same shot each time. Although, I did do some drawings of shots, such as for the theatre scene, as it was difficult to find the theatre free to take photos inside. I learnt that by using storyboarding, editing was made to be easier too as I could refer to the storyboard sheets to know which scene came where and what shot followed another. I used my storyboard photos in my animatic which allowed me to gain more understanding of how the finished product would look, what transitions would look more effective and the length of the film. From this, I found that it allowed me to have something to base my finished short film against and see whether or not my planning was effective.


Conventionally, a short film lasts about 5 minutes with an unexpected twist in the narrative structure. I decided to use this convention in my own product as I felt that this would allow my short film to be more recognisable to my target audience of teenagers (13 – 17). To appeal to this group, I created a poll on my blog which asked them how long they would expect a short film to be, the majority vote was 5-7 minutes so I knew that my short film would aim to be within this time limit. My short film lasts 6 minutes and 26 seconds which is slightly over the conventional time but is what my audience expected. I also researched several short films which I embedded and analysed on my blog, for example a film called ‘Paper or Plastic’ lasted 6 minutes 47 seconds which is also within my target audience’s expectations of the duration of a short film.


For the narrative structure, I decided to have it mostly chronological as the linear pattern would make the storyline easy to follow, however, there are moments of flashbacks which is repeated; The point of this was to challenge the narrative convention of having the narrative events happening A,B,C,D and adapting them to have one narrative event repeated which is the cause for the other narrative events, for example A,B,A,C,A,D. The opening to my film is non-linear to show that the main protagonist, Shannon, is reminiscing by revisiting her diary and the past events. I wanted to demonstrate that I understood narrative structure and that by having flashbacks – created by having white flash transitions in front and after the ‘A’ narrative event – I was able to experiment with the conventions of a strictly linear narrative. The ending of the film is chronological as I believe this keeps the audience in suspense as to what the ending will be.


Conventionally, an audience will expect films of a romance genre to have a happy ending where the two characters will live together and declare their love, however in the short film ‘A Hopeless Romantic’ this is not the case and I found that the ambiguous ending left the audience feeling intrigued. I decided to break the convention of a happy ending also and instead of the two having their happy ever after, they go their separate ways. This is my “unexpected twist” in my narrative structure and from my audience feedback, many people commented on how it was “unexpected” and quite “depressing”. Another reason for this ending was because I wanted the audience to be able to relate to the narrative in the sense that our love stories don’t always end the way we want them to either and our teenage years are usually filled with heartbreaks.


Most short films, because of their short duration, are expected to have a low budget so the cast is often very small, comprising of two central protagonists, their friends and either one or two antagonists. I used a cast of four people with two central protagonists and two antagonists; Originally, I was planning on having six characters with the extra two being friends of the protagonists however, I soon realised that the duration of the film would be too long for the conventional length of approximately five minutes, so, instead of having the friends, I decided to use a convention of having a point of view narrative from the characters so the audience is becoming a substitute for the friend. This was demonstrated through the use of voice over’s and also allows the characters to directly address the audience, involving them within the narrative. For example, the close-up shot of Jonny – the male protagonist – at the end of the film accompanied by the voice over reveals a lot of emotion which would hopefully provoke an emotional response from the audience; When showing my film to my target group, several said “Aww” at the end which, when asked, they said they “felt sorry for him” because of the sad ending. Voice over’s are also a convention of short films as it allows the characters to keep the audience up to date with the narrative, especially if events are only to be assumed when adding them in would increase the length of the film.

Music is a convention of short films as it can help to create an atmosphere or mood within a matter of seconds whilst relying on mise-en-scene and cinematography would take more time. From my research, I learnt that music is often heard underlying the action/dialogue, for example the short film ‘Memories’ uses non-diegetic piano music to help create an unsettling and mysterious atmosphere to the film. I decided to use this convention to help create a romantic mood for my short film, so for my opening I used the diegetic sound of a guitar playing the song ‘Love Story’ and for the ending I used the non-diegetic sound of ‘Love Story’ on piano. The reason why I chose the song ‘Love Story’ was because it tells a narrative in itself which is of a typical love story where boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after. It is a popular song which my target audience were able to identify so I hoped that they would recognise it, know the narrative behind it, and assume that my short film would follow the same storyline; however, the twist is that the happy ever after never comes so the song is helping to disguise my unexpected twist at the end. I wanted the audience to be able to relate to my short film which is the reason as to why I chose popular music that they would know and why I decided to have the unhappy ending because in reality, many people don’t get their dream-come-true relationship and so I wanted to convey how life is different to films. This is another convention of short films as, because of their short duration, their topics are often more relatable to the audience so they can become more involved and interested as to what happens.


Cinematography in short films use a variety of different shots, however because most short films are told from a point of view perspective, such as the film ‘A Hopeless Romantic’, there are often a lot of point of view camera angles. I followed this convention and used an alternating point of view shot from both the male and female protagonist during the ‘corridor scene’ which begins at 1:00 until 1:11. This meant that the audience were able to be involved in the film by feeling like they are one of the characters and see what they would see. I also decided to use the convention of close-up shots, for example in the film ‘Memories’ to reveal more intimate emotion portrayed by the characters, this I hope will provoke more of a sympathetic and empathetic response from the audience. I also used a panning shot, influenced from the film ‘Paper or Plastic’, to introduce my female character by using pan shots of her bedroom to set her background and interests.


When deciding on the mise-en-scene for my film, I decided to stereotype my main protagonists as people who are easily distinguishable from their appearance. The female character was made to emphasise her gender by wearing pink, or having girly clothes such as leggings or a skirt. Her glasses suggested that she was intelligent, possibly a little bit of a ‘geek’ and she is also seen carrying folders to demonstrate she is a student. The bedroom suggests a lot more about her character suggesting that her favourite colour is pink, her cuddly toys and choice of chick flick DVDs all reinforce her gender, that she is a girl. In contrast to her, the male protagonist is stereotyped as an ‘emo’ or ‘mosher’ social group. He is dressed in all black and his shirt reads “Metallica” to show that rock/metal music is a big influence on his life. The hat that he wears is more of a fashion statement rather than keeping his head warm and it shows that he likes what he likes and is un-phased by the attention he gets. The father of the female is designed to be an obstacle in the way of the two becoming an ‘item’. His beard suggests that he is older and the glasses could also suggest this as well as being intelligent and suggestive that he is the father of the girl because they both wear them. He automatically judges the male protagonist as he believes him to be a bad influence on his daughter, purely basing it on his appearance. However, we see the other side to the male who, when with the female, seems like a decent and nice guy. The two protagonists together don’t appear like a couple that would be successful or in fact date, but that is one of the points of my short film, to show that even the most unlikeliest of people could be compatible and not to judge a book completely by it’s cover.


For my poster, I decided to use the convention of having a large, singular image of the main characters in my film to be the main focus point of the poster. Compared to the other film posters I analysed, for example ’50 First Dates’ and ‘PS I Love You’, I realised that they had a main image of the two central protagonists which I thought seemed more effective than numerous smaller images which ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and ‘Love Actually’ decided to use. Personally, I found that having one large image helped to convey more information about the film, so for example ‘PS I Love You’ showed that the two are a couple and are in love whilst ‘Love Actually’ had many small images conveying the different personalities of the characters rather than information about the narrative. I believe that smaller images of all the cast are more effective if you have many famous people starring in them which is another reason why I decided to have one main image.


My title of the film is the largest text on the poster which is a convention of film posters as it draws more attention to the name of the film it is promoting; however, I did challenge the conventions of the positioning of the text where I preferred it towards the bottom third of the page. This not only looked different, but it was influenced by ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and ‘Love Actually’ as they too placed the name of the film towards the bottom of the page. This meant that the main attention was focused on the image selling the story rather than the name of the film.


The colour scheme of my poster was red, black, white, blue and grey. With the exception of the grey and blue I followed the colour conventions used in romantic film posters. I decided to use grey for the credits as I felt that the colour of black seemed to be the more dominant colour and I wanted there to be a fairly even distribution of colour. The credits also seemed to stand out much more than I’d intended so the grey made them more discrete. Blue was to represent the sadness that can come with a relationship, especially the ending of my film; however, this probably isn’t noticeable to the audience until after the film so it is like a hint as to what to expect. I decided to use red as it connotes love and is often found on film posters to promote the idea of romance, therefore I placed ‘Love’ in red. The black was to reinforce the reality side of the film in the sense that it is based on reality and isn’t a conventional love story. It was influenced by the idea of how people don’t take things seriously unless it’s in ‘black and white’.


A convention that I found, which was evident in all of the film posters I researched, such as ‘PS I Love You’, was the style of the names of the actors. Firstly, there are no capital letters, so everything is in lower case; There is also no space between the first and last name, so to distinguish that they are separate, the last name is always placed in bold, similarly to this: ‘firstnamelastname’. I decided to follow this convention as I liked the effect however but I also changed the colour to help make it more prominent too. I decided on using red as I believed that this connotes love.


To try to help sell my film, I included a tagline which was a convention I found from most of my posters, including ‘Love Actually'. This suggests a little bit about the film, such as the “Very romantic. Very comedy.” from ‘Love Actually’ which demonstrates it is a romantic comedy. The ‘very’ emphasises both the comedy and romance aspects and helps to sell the film to the audience. Another technique I used to help sell my film was the use of reviews. Although I didn’t find any examples of these in my film posters that I analysed, I know they are a feature of some film posters. The reviews allow the audience to see other people’s opinions of the film and help to ‘sell’ the film, especially if they’re good. I aimed to go for the minimalist look for my poster as I didn’t want to bombard the audience with images or hints as to what the film is about. I think it is effective as the title is made to stand out, the single image suggests that it is a romance film involving the two as the main protagonists and the tagline and reviews are made to try to sell the film.


From my radio advert research, I found that the voices had very enthusiastic voices which helped to ‘sell’ what it was the trailer was advertising, such as the ‘Subway’ advert. I decided to use this convention and had a male over-exaggerate his voice to make the trailer seem interesting and exciting. However, I did break the convention by adding another voice to the trailer. At the end, I decided to have both a boy and girl voice to say the title of the short film of ‘Love Story’ and the tagline of ‘sometimes it isn’t as simple as it seems’. I felt that this placed more emphasis on the important title of the film and it also showed that because of using both male and female voices, that the film appealed to both genders. The radio trailer ‘Think!’ overlaps the speaker’s voice. I decided to use this at the end of my advert with the combination of both a female and male speaker, however to help my radio trailer be more fast-paced, I decided to slightly overlap my male speaker’s voice which would add to the enthusiasm, suggesting that the male is excited and therefore he is speaking faster.


Music is a convention that I decided to follow from both the ‘Subway’ and ‘QuickMove’ radio adverts. This adds more interest to the advert as it has catchy and interesting music to accompany the enthusiastic voice trying to advertise it’s company. For my music choice, I decided to use ‘Love Story’ the piano version as I believe it demonstrated that my short film was romantic and also hinted as to what the narrative of the film was about. The song itself is a popular and well-known song that my audience were able to recognise, this would mislead the audience in to predicting a happy ending when really it is not.


My radio advert included the main things that I had on my poster including: the title of the film, the tagline and the actors. I also decided to include sound clips from the film itself. Originally, I placed the actor’s names in alphabetical order by having the male first followed by the female, however I realised that my sound clips didn’t follow on from each other very well so swapped them. Instead of ‘I didn’t think I would’ followed by ‘How did you find me?’ it made more sense to have them the other way round and then the audience would also gain some understanding of the narrative. From this, they could conclude that at some point in the film, the male goes looking for the female.


I found it difficult to show a link between my poster and my radio advert as the poster is the visual promotion for the film and the radio is the audio promotion so the only links between the two are the names of the actors, the name of the film 'Love In Reality', the tagline 'Sometimes It Isn't As Simple As It Seems' and the production company that made it, 'Midget Gem Productions'. However, both link closely with the short film. The music choice of ‘Love Story’ is evident in both my short film and radio trailer. This shows that they are both connected and offer some indication as to what the narrative of the film is, suggesting that the film will follow the typical romantic storyline and have a happy ending. My audience feedback from my questionnaire results revealed that they were able to recognise the music choice and believed that it indicated something regarding the narrative, meaning that the song helped to recognise my film as a romance. My audience found that all three products were effective and they were able to recognise the links between them. For the advertising products such as the poster, they were able to recognise the main protagonists in the short film and realise that their relationship was the focus of the film. From the radio advert, they recognised the music of 'Love Story' in the film was the same as used on the trailer. My audience said that the advertisements advertised the film truthfully. They could recognise that it was a romance and it told the story of the relationship of the two protagonists mentioned on the radio advert and on the poster. However 3 out of 10 respondents said that they would prefer not to see the film as they don't particularly enjoy the film trailer.


I used different methods to gain audience feedback. For the researching stages, I set up a poll on my Blogger account which asked a series of questions of what an audience would expect from a short film and what genre they favour… I also used my facebook account to advertise and ask my friends to vote and help my research. Overall, seventeen people responded and I was able to gain some insight as to what an audience want. Most who responded were of my primary target audience of teenage girls aged between 14-20 whilst my secondary target audience, and second most respondent, were teenage boys aged 14-20. For the duration of my short film, I learnt that the majority would expect it to last between 5-7 minutes. This meant that I had a time frame to aim for as well as the time set in the brief. It also meant that I could plan how long the scenes in my film should last for. Romance / Romantic Comedy was the most popular genre with 15 people voting for it whilst the lowest of 6 votes was the horror genre. This showed me that this genre is more appealing to an audience. However, 10 respondents believe the genre of romance is more closely associated females rather than 5 people who believe that both genders can be associated with romance.


Throughout the process of planning and developing my initial ideas for my short film/poster/radio advert, I asked my friends and teachers opinions along the way. They were often very positive, mentioning little changes, such as re-recording dialogue to make it louder on my short film, deciding which picture looks better for my poster and making my radio advert have a faster pace by overlapping the dialogue. This improved my products during the development stages, not just when they were completed. I found that gaining audience feedback at different developing stages was more helpful and less more time-consuming if I had to re-do all aspects of my products when I thought they were finished.


For overall audience feedback I decided to create a questionnaire for a small group to fill in. This included three different sections on each product I’d produced so there was a section dedicated to a response on my short film, then my film poster, then my radio advert. I showed them the advertising campaigns first, so my film poster and radio advert, before showing them my final short film. This meant that they were exposed to what was promoting the film and their assumptions of what to expect from the film before actually seeing it. It really allowed me to see whether or not the advertising campaign was effective, and from the audience feedback they were able to identify the romance genre and that the film would probably follow the typical narrative. They were able to identify the song as ‘Love Story’ by Taylor Swift which they said suggested that the film would end happily, however the “unexpected ending” was quite “depressive” and they were unaware that it would conclude in that way. This showed that my music choice worked to mislead the audience in to thinking it would be a stereotypical love story with a happy ever after. When asked if they would like to see the film, I gained mixed responses. The majority said that they would like to see the film, however some said that they wouldn’t because they don’t particularly enjoy the romance genre.


When I first posted my short film on YouTube, I got some comments regarding the appearance of the bus at the end of the film. The person (who remained anonymous) stated that they found the bus a distraction and recommended that I re-shoot that scene; however, despite not being planned, I believe that the bus adds more validity to the film. When analysing my film, I interpret the bus representing how life continues and it is representative of how the male protagonist returns to normal life. It also makes the film more realistic as it is filmed on a real location so traffic will be expected and adds verisimilitude.


From my audience feedback, I received a few comments regarding my sound quality. I knew that in sections of my film, such as the stairway scene, the dialogue between the protagonists was quite quiet and I couldn’t increase the volume anymore. If I’d of had more time, I would have liked to have re-recorded the dialogue and then dubbed it over to improve the audibility. Someone had also commented on my radio advert, saying that the music seemed too loud and slightly drowned out the voice. To improve, I would make the ‘Love Story’ soundtrack quieter so that the voice could be heard easier.


Blogger was the main form of technology I used throughout my coursework. It allowed me to show all of my research, planning, constructing and evaluating stages at the times that I did them. It also helped me to collect audience research to find out what an audience would want through creating a poll down the side of my blog, pasting the URL onto my facebook page then requesting people to fill out their answers. Because I’d used Blogger before, I was aware of all the different features, such as creating a poll and uploading images, however I learnt how to embed videos by taking the embed code, clicking “Edit Html” on the ‘edit post’ section and simply pasting the embed code in to there. I used Youtube to research and embed a lot of the short films and radio ads that I analysed. This helped me to save time as I could simply embed them on to my Blogger account. I also put my radio advert as well as my short film on my own channel on Youtube that helped me to gain audience feedback.


PowerPoint was also a programme I used regularly, mainly to brainstorm my initial ideas before creating them on PhotoShop. Originally, I designed the layout of my poster ideas on PowerPoint, for example using the shape and text tools to move them into different places then deciding on what I thought looked best. After deciding this, I would replicate that onto PhotoShop to make it look more realistic to real media texts.


For a lot of my typing, I used Microsoft Word to allow me to check all of my spelling before uploading onto Blogger. This made it easier for me to edit and print out as I didn’t need an internet connection to edit or access the work. I’ve used Microsoft Word before so I found it easy to use and knew how to use it. I also used Microsoft Word to create my questionnaire for my audience feedback.


When taking photos for my storyboard and animatic, I used a Samsung es57 which was my own camera. I already knew how to use this and it allowed me to gain a sense of how the shot would look and also the lighting problems that may surface. I filmed my short film and recorded the radio advert on a Sony HVR-HD1000E. I could also check that the framing of my shot was correct by checking on the small TV screen that was on the camera. This meant I could see how the scene shot would look on a larger TV screen. When filming my short film and recording the voice-over for my radio trailer, I used a Sony HVR-HD1000E. It was easy enough to use however it was the first time I’d used this specific make so I learnt a lot of new things. The first was realising that I could check the sound and video quality that I was filming by inserting ear-phones and watching the action on a small video screen. This meant I could check to hear whether the actors were audible, if other sounds affected or drowned out their speech and it also meant I could check that the framing was correct. I also used a tripod with the camera which again was something I’d used before however I learnt that there was a small spirit level on the tripod that helped me to make sure that the tripod and the camera was straight. To adjust the camera itself, there was a small cog underneath where the camera sits which allows you to manoeuvre the camera to the appropriate position; again, this is checked using the spirit level on the tripod.


I used PhotoShop to create my film posters and used most of the tools to create my ideas. The ‘quick selection tool’ allowed me to edit the background of my pictures so that I could delete and replace with a blank, white background. It was a very useful tool and one that I used often to essentially ‘cut’ away the background from my actors. Another tool that I used was the ‘horizontal type tool’ which allowed me to place text and type text onto my work.


When editing my short film and radio trailer, I used Adobe Premier Pro CS4 which is non-linear editing software. This meant that I could move my shots, transitions and music anywhere I wanted to and, if I had to start again, I didn’t need to re-start the whole project again; I could just adapt and improve the shots as necessary. I learnt a lot about how to use this programme including importing my videos, pictures and sound. When I’d imported my videos which you could do from simply going to ‘file’ then ‘import’, I learnt how to drag the video clips to wherever I wanted them to be on my timeline and I could drag either end of the clip to shorten or increase the duration. If I wanted to adapt just the visual clip and not the audio that accompanied the video, I clicked the ‘lock’ icon at the side of Audio1 (or on the line that the audio is placed) and that locked the sound clip to that position so it wouldn’t be affected by anything I changed with the visual clip. When I wanted to change it again, I just clicked the lock icon once more and it became unlocked. I could also trim the size of the video clip on the TV screen by cropping the frame of the video. I used this in my credits of the short film to show both the actors playing the boyfriend and father and I placed both visual clips on top of each other and positioned the visual cropped images next to each other so on the TV screen they appear next to each other. I could add text by ‘adding title’ as another visual clip on another line of the video and typed my text which then appeared over the video clip. When adding transitions at either side of my video clip, using Adobe Premier Pro CS4, I simply clicked the ‘video transitions’ folder option to the left side of my timeline and dragged the type of transition I wanted; the most used transitions were the white-flash and the fade as I used the repetition of the white-flash to reinforce the idea that the narrative events were being caused by the female protagonist revisiting memories in her diary. The fade transition was to demonstrate either a passing of time or merge the shots in to each other.


To get some of my sound effects that I used in my short film, for example in the cinema scene, I went on a website called freesound.org that allowed me to download free sound effects. This was really useful and I felt like it created a more realistic effect for the film because of the sound effects being so prominent, they helped to create an image as to what the protagonists were watching as it helped create a background noise. I also downloaded a song from YouTube which was the piano version of Love Story. The artist, TruePiano1, granted me permission to use this and so I was able to import and place the sound track onto both my radio advert and my short film. When I’d imported the sound onto my project using Adobe Premier Pro CS4, I was able to make the sound quieter by clicking and holding the yellow line running through the sound clip and dragged it down to make the sound quieter or dragged it up to make it louder. I could also trim the sound clip to the size that I wanted by dragging the ends to whichever length I wanted. When I wanted the music to slowly drown out or fade in, I clicked the ‘pen’ tool and held down ‘ctrl’ then I clicked to place small dots on my yellow line – which determines the volume – and then dragged one end down for it to grow in volume or fade out. I did plan on filming my audience feedback, such as when my target audience were watching the film then I could record their immediate reactions to it; however I believed that I wouldn’t have time to edit it together and so had to reconsider by depending on the questionnaire results instead.


Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Audience Feedback

I did request that on my YouTube videos, of my Radio Ad and my Short Film, if people could comment both good/bad; however, some people abused this opportunity and didn't comment on the film but rather the director (me). I explained some of my reasons about my film which they didn't understand and left it at that and I've now replaced the film with the final film so those comments aren't availible to see.




To gather more feedback, I created a questionnaire which I handed out. I asked 10 people in total but despite being a small number, I was still able to gain some good feedback. I was going to record their reactions when they were watching the film, then interview people about their comments, however I ran out of time and so decided to just gather the questionnaire data instead.


From the questionnaire results, I made tables for my numerical data and bullet-pointed some of the comments. The results were as followed:



For my short film, the audience feedback was good. The lowest score was a 3 for any one thing and 5 was the highest. This shows that my audience enjoyed the film.






What did you think worked well? - The flow of scenes, The song with the screenplay, The storyline, Varied use of locations, Music, Interaction between actors, Overall, the storyline seemed to get a lot of recognition for working well, as did the music. This shows that the audience must've been able to follow the storyline which was possibly aided by the use of music.


What do you think didn't work? - The volume (too quiet), Shaking frames / handheld shots, Sound synchronisation at the beginning (guitar), I knew that there were audio issues within the film, especially the scene on the stairs which I know could've been improved. The handheld shots were intended to create a point of view shot however I think it would have looked better if I'd of used a dolly - but due to funds this wasn't possible. The sound synchronisation with the guitar at the beginning could use some more work as I had to cut parts of the song as the recordings I did were too short for my final film; If I could re-do this then I would.


Did you find the narrative easy to follow? All 10 people said "Yes". It was "simplistic and easily identifiable".


Can you identify the song played at the end of the film? All of the audience was able to identify the song as Love Story by Taylor Swift. This shows that choosing a popular song worked.

Can you identify the genre of the film and why? - Romance / Love

- The relationship between the two main characters, the narrative, love, I was pleased with the results of my short film as they were all positive and the few negatives were on things I already knew and wished I could improve.


I then went on to ask about my poster. Here was the feedback:


My second question was whether the audience could recognise the genre / what they thought the poster said about the film; The majority of the audience said they recognised a love theme, the rest were N/A or quoted the "powerful and moving short story". This shows that they were able to acknowledge that the film was a romance / love story.





Lastly, I asked about my radio advert:


My second question was asking whether the audience could recognise what the film was about. They all said that the advert was fairly self-explanatory and that it was a love story.








The feedback for the overall campaign was positive. All of my respondants were able to identify that my target audience were teenagers / young people because it was a young cast used in the film so they would be more likely to relate to it.



On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being very), How would you rate the effectiveness of the campaign? My results were as shown, which shows that my respondants found the campaign successful because they all rated it as effective.







I also asked whether or not the respondants would want to go and see the film and why they would. 7 people said they would but the other 3 said that they probably wouldn't because the genre of romance isn't something that interests them. For those that said they would, they said that the narrative is relatable to them so they would want to see it because they can relate to it.

Friday, 4 March 2011

Love In Reality - Short Film

This is my short film - Love In Reality. Music/Sound: 'Love Story' (guitar)- diegetic, is synchronised with action on screen. Sets the scene of a romance as the guitar is a romantic instrument and the narrative of the song choice suggests that it is about two people who fall in love and live happily ever after. 'Love Story' (piano)- non-diegetic. Atmospheric. Because of the piano, it sets the scene of quite a sad yet romantic tone. Voice Overs - allow the audience to keep up with the narrative, for example it would take too long to show how the two protagonists relationship developed so the voice over explains to the audience a passing of time and how they "walk to college" a lot. The end voice over is told from the male character's perspective and allows the audience to understand his thoughts and what happened. Muffled Dance Music (Jason Derulo) - Sets the scene that they are at a dance or at a place where a party is happening, however the muffled tone suggests that they are far from the action and it is happening elsewhere. Diegetic Sound / Ambient Noise - adds more verisimilitude to the piece, such as the wind / car sounds / college sounds such as the talking and movement of students... Cinematography: Pan shots - show a lot of the female's interests at the beginning. Shows more of the location of her bedroom and emphasises her interests and gender. Mid-Shots - standard shot used in films, allows the face of the actor to be seen and some of their outfit to be seen also so the audience has more awareness of the character and location. Close-Ups - provide more emotion for the audience to experience. The actor / actress is able to show more emotion to provoke an emotion from the audience. For example, the close up shot of the male protagonist at the end promotes sympathy and possibly empathy if they are able to relate to his situation. Tracking Shots - follow the character and allow the audience to see more of the mise-en-scene. Point-of-view shots / Handheld shots - allow the audience to experience what the character sees. Long Shots - to suggest how there is a distance between the two characters, also demonstrates how isolated and alone the character feels. Upward Tilt - makes the character have more power / authority over the other. Downward Tilt - makes the character seem inferior and more vulnerable compared to the other character. Editing: Cut - There are match-cut-on-action shots as well as eyeline match cuts to link the scenes together. This makes the action continuous and adds a faster pace to the film. Fade - the fades demonstrate a passing of time and also merge certain shots together. For example, the ending shows how the male has seen her and is running to meet her. White Flash - this suggests that the scene with the diary is the cause for the other narrative events, so she is revisiting those memories in her diary and we, as the audience, are experiencing them. Paralell Editing - (ending) suggests that there is something approaching (the car) and that the narrative is going to be interrupted by yet another obstacle. Mise-En-Scene: The opening of dvds, cuddly toys and pink colour scheme suggest that the female character is a stereotypical girl in the sense that she likes pink, likes animals and enjoys a good chick flick / romantic comedy film. She often wears pink or girly outfits that promote her figure and gender. Her glasses suggest that she is intelligent which is reinforced by her carrying a school bag and folders. The male is dressed in black, suggestive that he is a 'mosher' or 'emo' which is a group that teenagers are used to being exposed to. He follows the convention of that label, the "heavy metal" top suggests that his music taste is Metallica, his long hair suggests rebellion and his hat shows that it is a fashion statement rather than something to keep him warm. Bedroom - is pink and girly. Emphasising the female protagonist's gender. Location of college suggests that they are both students and are still in education. It demonstrates that they are still in their teenage years. Cinema / Theatre shows that they are in a different location to college and on a date. Field - the field is representative of the distance they have covered in their time together. Gardens - set a romantic scene and possibly suggest the new growth of a relationship.

Thursday, 10 February 2011

Test Shots (3)

This is the first edit of my short film. I still need to include the candidate number / college number etc... at the beginning. However, there are many improvements that can be made to this.
The length of the film is possibly too long for the content, aka it needs shortening. Several scenes need re-cutting and shortening which will help this. These scenes include the corridor scene (where the camera shows the point of view of Jonny and Shannon). The opening - instead of having Shannon throughout then Jonny playing the guitar, I could use paralell editing which will decrease the length and also make my film seem more fast-paced.


Monday, 7 February 2011

Saturday, 5 February 2011

Test Shots (1)

Originally, I was going to have a sequence of shots in Shannon's bedroom. Influenced by Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me video, Jonny and Shannon would have a conversation between each other through the window using only sheets which they'd written on. I began to edit the shots together but soon realised that it would be too long and it would nearly be the length of my entire short film! Because of this, I decided to drop the scene completely, but here is a taster of the original shots which will give some idea as to what it may have looked like.



Even for these original shots (which if I was using I would have re-shot because of the poor quality), I struggled most with the correct lighting of the shot. At the beginning, as Shannon turns on her light from black, the camera blurs slightly before regaining focus. We also had some trouble making sure that Jonny could be seen from outside. The lighting from inside reflected in the window, so we had to dim that, but that also meant that Jonny was more in shadow too. Eventually, we figured that to see Jonny we'd need a light outside that was stronger than the one inside, so we had an up-angled light on Jonny (placed under the window so you couldn't see) and we placed a camera light on the camera which had an adjustable intensity. However, the lights from the road across the riverbank behind the house are also reflected in the window and the only way that that could've been avoided would be to use a sheet or cardboard behind Jonny. Because there was little sound, I was going to place some music in the background, probably non-diegetic sound of the piano version of Love Story but I liked the idea of that going at the end and didn't want it to be constant. So, overall, I'm happy that this scene was cut as it would've taken too long to re-shoot, taken too much time in my short film and we had a lot of difficulties with lighting.