Thursday, 5 April 2012

Evaluation #3

The audience feedback we received post-filming has put into perspective what we have acheived during the production of Optiplex. It has helped us determine whether we have targetted the right audience or have attracted a different range and it has shown us what we need to improve on for future productions.

We can determine from the research that our audience particularly like the following factors:
. Our locations, they were perfect for cohesively linking settings to the plot (e.g the Thistle hotel in Middlesbrough was identifiable as the backdrop for the business meeting).
. The character's costumes, they wore stereotypical attire that the audience easily identified with.
. They also liked the music and camera angles that related to the plot and gave an industry-standard finish.
. The film's enigma code which kept the audience guessing whether the technician will help the business woman or not.

Some factors they didn't like included how vague the transitions were to highlight time travel and the lack of dialogue. Also, we had electrical and equipment malfunctions, including faulty tripods, and lack of battery power for the camera which meant we had to use my Nikon Coolpix L120 for the final scenes.

Of course, we would consider these factors to improve in new productions.

Below is a video anaylsis of Evaluation 3 prdouced by our group concerning our audience feedback:


Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Evaluation question 2


Evaluation question 1

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


Before we produced our short film we researched and analysed successful short films, such as 'George Lucas in Love' a spoof Sci-Fi comedy and main stream blockbusters such as ‘Paul’ a Western desert, and a road trip/comedy genre and 'Super 8', a blockbuster SciFi and thriller. Through researching the combination of films, i could see which key features contribute in establishing a sucessful genre (hybrid). I also noticed that the use of different camera shots contirbute to the success of the film; an example of this would be the shot reveres shot used in 'Paul'. This helped to capture the actors expression and dialogue.

From watching and analysing both 'Paul' and 'Super 8' i conculuded that the theme presented, Friendship, worked well and appealed to it's audience. This helped with the idea of forming a character presented as a 'trusting samartian', however turns out to be completely different, like a doppleganger. The 'Good Sameritian' ruins the opposing character's life with a unforseen twist at the the end unknown to the audience. When conversing about filming, an office based building was needed for the majority of the scenes so it was decided to shoot at Mima Art Center in Middlesbrough. This held the idea of futuristic location leading into one of our themes of time travelling. The futurisitic location also relates to the film ‘iRobot’ starting with Will Smith. The internal of the Mima building was modern, white walls holding a futuristic effect, this matching the interior of buildings shown in 'iRobot'. When deciding the hybrid (genre) of the film I looked at different short films such as ‘Across the Hall’ directed by Alex Merkin a thriller genre and 'George Lucas in Love' directed by Joe Nussbaum. These two films helped me to specify the key features in the presenting and maintaining a specified genre for my audience. After analysing key features which are presented in the genres of both films it was  decided that our film would use the hybrid (genre) of time and Technology. The inspriation of the genre and initally the idea for the film came from the mainstream film the 'Time Traveller's Wife', exhibiting both genres used in my short film. From watching and researching the mainstream film i learnt the key mechanism's used to present  the genre.

Throughout the film we used the convention of lighting however this was used through natural light. This convention often helped to emphasis facial expressions and show a scene clearer. A postive example of this would be when shooting at the entrance of Thistle hotel, the sunlight was reflecting on my face, as i was acting, this created an effect on my face showing her face expression in a more effective. What could have been improved in the film was when shooting at Thistle hotel entrance there was hardly any dark so when my fellow actor was expressing his dalogue, his facial expresions could not be seen properly as we were dependent on the natural light from the sky. However we now, as group know for next time  that we need to prepare our own lightings. The costumes were effective when portraying our characters, wearing buisness suits to represent an important character.The smart business clothes also represent middle class people .

During the film, it becomes noticable that one of our characters has changed their appearance at the end of the film; from  normal shirt, glasses, and trousers in to formal buisness suit. This shows the change from one social class into higher social class. The rules we  followed  and obliged by for the short films were that the film should be no longer than five minutes, we were not allowed to use zoom in our shots, we had to use professional equipment, example being a tripod, we had to create and use our own music and use a range of shots throughout our film.  A script was created and followed throughout the film, however was altered at times (see post below).
Editing was a key essential in creating and pulling our film together, however there were a few malfunctions during the course of editing. Example being, timing of music and transformations and at a time, the loss of a few edited scenes. Although these were minor issues editing has  played 70% creating a more proffesional media product to submit.


Before the creation of the poster, one out of two ancillary tasks, I researched and again analysed short film posters for inspiration and to know the atributes of what makes a successfull film poster which advertises my media product..  I analysedboth short film and main stream film posters to compare their appearences what techniques were  used to entice their audience. A main attribute appearing on both short and mainstream posters was a tag line. I then later researched into why a tag line was a key essential for a film poster. A tag line connects both media products together, the tag line insinuating information about the film without diving into to much information and spoiling the plot of the film. The tag line also intices audiences . When comparing mainstream posters such as ‘Cowboy and Aliens’ to ‘George Lucas in Love’  the poster advertising 'Cowboys and Aliens' does not present  too much writing and has fewer pictures. However, a short film poster contains different images presenting the different characters to the audience.





















By analysing these posters I decided to use an dominiant image showing my main character at one of the locations, initally mirroring the end scene to show a connection between both my media products. Because of the postive response seen on different film posters, i decided to create my own tagline for my film.














2nd Ancillary task

2nd ancillary task
Film poster

Ancillary task 1

The final design of my 1st ancillary task
Double Page Spread

Optiplex short film