Final Products

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.

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.

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.

Test Shots (2)

This is my first attempt at editing my ending.

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.

My Radio Ad - Love In Reality

This is the video for my radio ad. I had to use an image to upload it on to YouTube, so I decided to use my film poster. It shows the development of my radio ad in order.




MUSIC.
I decided to use the piano version of Love Story in the background of the radio ad as it was clear and consistent throughout and tied nicely with my film. The song is associated with the well-known Taylor Swift song Love Story so the audience will be aware that the film is a Romance. At the beginning and end of the advert, I increased then decreased the volume of the music so that it would fade in and fade out to the next advert on the radio. This introduced and summarised the advert so if another advert was played after they would be easily distinguishable as seperate adverts.
VOICE.
I decided to use a male voice for the main body of the advert. I recorded him saying little phrases and then put them together. At first, I placed each phrase straight after the other but then realised it didn't have as fast a pace as other adverts. It also made my advert longer, so I decided to overlap the phrases slightly which were clear to hear but aided the fast-paced speed that most adverts have. At the end, I added a female voice to combine with the males. This was to show to the target audience that it is appealing to both genders and also adds more depth and interest to the end of the radio because an extra sound has been added. The ending of the advert is the title and slogan of the film which helped to conclude the advert. I did try editing the male voice by making it deeper to create a more sophisticated sound, however it made little difference to the sound so I left it the same.
For the voice overs from the film, I originally had Jonny's line first before Shannon's. This worked but it didn't seem to make sense as the extracts didn't follow on from each other and made sense on their own. I then decided to swap Jonny's extract for a clearer one which I'd re-recorded which made it sound a lot better. However, I ended up swapping Shannon's voice extract with Jonny's as it made more sense going: "How did you find me?" then "I didn't think I would" compared to the other way round as it gave the audience a bit of the storyline of the film.