1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the conventions of real media products?
Through the three different media types I have created in this project (five minute short film, double page spread and an A4 film poster) I have used real media products and then developed them also, challenging them.
Similar films such as Kidulthood and Adulthood have helped me develop an understanding of British culture filming for the target age group of fifteen to twenty five years of age. Thorough research on these films which can be seen in my blog updates in the pre-production section has allowed me to produce my own idea on what I wanted my short film to be about.
I developed the same narrative conventions of the film Adulthood and Kidulthood, using London youth culture as the dominating issue displayed in my media text. I used dominant ideology such as drug culture, gang culture and knife crime in working class families and done wider research on these issues. I wanted my film to be of a London based drama also having the genre of Educational and inspiring. This genre has been explored by various different films such as Dubplate. Complying with media products of this genre, mine and Patria’s text has sub-genre of biography (shown through the monologue) and film noir. Although my media text was inspired by these types of genre’s I found through the research I done, that these films had negative connotations and stereotypes attached to them. I didn’t want to make these perceptions any larger than they are so I didn’t put in any bad language or advertise smoking. I did not want the audience to focus on these bad actions.
My film challenges early cinema media texts such as short films made by the Quay Brothers. Although I understand that my film indirectly has connections to early cinema due to early cinematic films all being short film’s I have tried to step away from this and develop a more individual feel to the media text. I developed cinema ideas by using colour and advanced editing techniques and effects on the software Adobe provides called Photoshop CS5.
‘The Door’ is a short film which I researched which had connotations to early cinema, using miming and black and white colours. It was also very repetitive with no dialogue and foreign music involved. I wanted to have a very different impact on my audience compared to the effect this one had on their target audience. In order for me to catch my audience’s attention I believe I had to use modern ideas and software as the newer generation do not appreciate the concepts which early cinema has brought to the media.
Tzventan Todorov’s narrative Theory was an element which was challenged in my short film. I tried to use a different order in audience understanding. Although my film does develop his theory in that it has a state of equilibrium and then a disruption, my film complies with this in an unusual way as there are two different time stories (1. The Olympic training. 2. The death of Marlon’s older brother)
which are compressed together by the use of flashbacks. This is effective as the audience doesn’t achieve a full understanding until the end of the short film (all becomes clear that the monologue is a letter written to his brother on the anniversary of his death). Also Todorov believes there is a group and order of ‘cause and effect’ whereas in my media text the audience see’s the effect before the cause.
Micro-elements have been used in my films which are typical of real media texts. The mise-en-scene was produced by using mise-en-shot. The camera shots I have used are used in many different films of the same genre with the same target audience.
Similar films such as Kidulthood and Adulthood have helped me develop an understanding of British culture filming for the target age group of fifteen to twenty five years of age. Thorough research on these films which can be seen in my blog updates in the pre-production section has allowed me to produce my own idea on what I wanted my short film to be about.
I developed the same narrative conventions of the film Adulthood and Kidulthood, using London youth culture as the dominating issue displayed in my media text. I used dominant ideology such as drug culture, gang culture and knife crime in working class families and done wider research on these issues. I wanted my film to be of a London based drama also having the genre of Educational and inspiring. This genre has been explored by various different films such as Dubplate. Complying with media products of this genre, mine and Patria’s text has sub-genre of biography (shown through the monologue) and film noir. Although my media text was inspired by these types of genre’s I found through the research I done, that these films had negative connotations and stereotypes attached to them. I didn’t want to make these perceptions any larger than they are so I didn’t put in any bad language or advertise smoking. I did not want the audience to focus on these bad actions.
My film challenges early cinema media texts such as short films made by the Quay Brothers. Although I understand that my film indirectly has connections to early cinema due to early cinematic films all being short film’s I have tried to step away from this and develop a more individual feel to the media text. I developed cinema ideas by using colour and advanced editing techniques and effects on the software Adobe provides called Photoshop CS5.
‘The Door’ is a short film which I researched which had connotations to early cinema, using miming and black and white colours. It was also very repetitive with no dialogue and foreign music involved. I wanted to have a very different impact on my audience compared to the effect this one had on their target audience. In order for me to catch my audience’s attention I believe I had to use modern ideas and software as the newer generation do not appreciate the concepts which early cinema has brought to the media.
Tzventan Todorov’s narrative Theory was an element which was challenged in my short film. I tried to use a different order in audience understanding. Although my film does develop his theory in that it has a state of equilibrium and then a disruption, my film complies with this in an unusual way as there are two different time stories (1. The Olympic training. 2. The death of Marlon’s older brother)
which are compressed together by the use of flashbacks. This is effective as the audience doesn’t achieve a full understanding until the end of the short film (all becomes clear that the monologue is a letter written to his brother on the anniversary of his death). Also Todorov believes there is a group and order of ‘cause and effect’ whereas in my media text the audience see’s the effect before the cause.
Micro-elements have been used in my films which are typical of real media texts. The mise-en-scene was produced by using mise-en-shot. The camera shots I have used are used in many different films of the same genre with the same target audience.
- Close ups – To capture the emotion on the subject characters face (usually to signify the importance of that person or the event which had just happened) I used this in the Olympic scene and Remembrance scene
- Extreme close up – To capture the significance of the item/ prop (knife) to glorify the small prop and make an illusion of it being bigger that it is (low angles are also used for this)
- Wide mid-shots – Captures an atmosphere where more than one character can be seen (this was used in the gang scene)
- Extreme long shot – Captures the environment, makes it seem personal as if the audience is in the area looking from afar (used in the Olympic training scene)
Although the forms and conventions during the process of making the films Kidulthood and Adulthood I took a different approach by the use of narration and editing I used a montage approach where the audience connected what seems like unrelated shots. They connected these by the use of dialogue and monologue which has been carefully put in at appropriate times.
We noticed that on most other media texts the flow from one scene to another was usually done by a transition of ‘fade in’ and ‘fade out’. We felt that it was important to add this in our project however we used hi-tech software to explore various other transitions which would work well with our project. We found that ‘flashes’ would make our project look very professional however it is extremely hard to do on limited software.
Because our media text is a short film which we wanted to be very powerful and inspirational we felt that we had to make it very personalised to our featured audience. We wanted to introduce a monologue into our short film. This was inspired by the beginning of the movie ‘Shank’. As a viewer I became intrigued to want to stay and watch more of the movie just by the opening scenes put together by a monologue (This can be watched in a link in one of the older posts). By the use of non-diegetic sound the audience will feel as if the character is speaking to them, making them involved in the film. Also, allowing the audience to build a rapport with the main subject character... this emphasises emotion when the stabbing happens in my media text. Fade’s of diegetic sound was used of the ‘coaches’ dialogue. The audio complies with the traditional conventions of a similar genre film. By the use of an up-beat piece of music which was put together by a group of friends who are currently practicing their own production company in music and vocals. Music was also used to mould the pace of the scene. Just like every other media text, we created this film by deconstructing the plot and story and decided to reveal the events which make up the story and ensure they flow by the use of sound. Our short film is only five minutes long which meant that we had to manipulate the time. Myself and Patria done this by using flashbacks and real time interludes. The combination provides a clear separating between the two different time stories going on.
All of these things helped to position the audience into having a strong relationship with the characters.
The poster which I created also uses and develops media products which have been created before. My poster is most similar to the poster for the film ‘Bullet Boy’. I used one large image which dominated the poster and I also used very dark colours. This created connotations of danger and mystery. Bullet Boy also done used dark colours. However, my poster challenges the traditional conventions of film posters because I only used one image. Through the research on film posters I found that most posters for my genre use a minimum of two images and a maximum of four. I only used one as I wanted the audience to focus on one male growing up on London. I used brighter colours such as purple and red to bring the inspirational theme to the poster without directly saying it. I displayed the contrast of the two dominating characters in the media text in the colour scheme of the writing on the poster. I used the white and black background split with different colour text to represent the two different characters.
Film Review
The film review which I created uses the same conventions of a traditional film review; much like the film reviews that I explored in later posts I used columns to separate the small text with larger images which dominate the review. This is mainly because of the target age of the audience I feel that the images will attract this audience more than text will. Different colour schemes were used creating uncertainty in the order of the film review which complies with the theme of my short film. The text content uses irony which I found through research is very much like most film reviews
Film Poster
To watch title sequences and short films made by important people in media such as the Quay Brothers I went on www.youtube.com This is a video sharing website which anybody is free to upload video’s. I found this very useful as it allowed me to research other short films so I became familiar of the conventions of short films, also similar video’s to the genre I wanted to base my film around.
2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?
Main Product - Short Film
Below I am going to talk about the different elements separately which all came together to construct the final main product.
Effectiveness of Dialogue
The use of dialogue in the short film made a very successful impact, although media is rein acting real life I wanted the audience to feel connected with the film and the characters in the film. The dialogue had to feel as real and honest as possible. The voice had to show different depths to their emotion. We used a boy called Kayo who is currently studying drama and wants to pursue this in his future. We found that by using him the dialogue would be delivered successfully. By having a powerful voice, the audience will be manipulated into building a relationship with the character. As story writers we tried to keep the text simple and use language our target audience can relate too, making this personalised and effective to them. We grouped sentences which were imaginative to sway the audience to think deeper into the dialogue... “Winners are amateurs who don’t give up” The dialogue helped to progress the film, making it flow and allowing the audience to make connections when scenes may be missing.
Main Product - Short Film
Below I am going to talk about the different elements separately which all came together to construct the final main product.
Effectiveness of Dialogue
The use of dialogue in the short film made a very successful impact, although media is rein acting real life I wanted the audience to feel connected with the film and the characters in the film. The dialogue had to feel as real and honest as possible. The voice had to show different depths to their emotion. We used a boy called Kayo who is currently studying drama and wants to pursue this in his future. We found that by using him the dialogue would be delivered successfully. By having a powerful voice, the audience will be manipulated into building a relationship with the character. As story writers we tried to keep the text simple and use language our target audience can relate too, making this personalised and effective to them. We grouped sentences which were imaginative to sway the audience to think deeper into the dialogue... “Winners are amateurs who don’t give up” The dialogue helped to progress the film, making it flow and allowing the audience to make connections when scenes may be missing.
Effectiveness of the Background and Set Piece
In my role as a cinematographer I ensured that the mise-en-scene was appropriate for our storyline. I created the atmosphere for the different scenes in the short film in the different locations. A home location was used in order to emphasis the effectiveness of the family life and to enhance the significance of the relationship between Marlon and Daniel. The lighting was bright for this scene which was used to work with the atmosphere needed. The props were of furniture and ‘everyday’ life use in the home environment. It is important to create the real life feel in order to connect effectively to the audience. To ensure that I didn’t distract the audience by the background I made sure there was no vibrant colours used to take the attention away from the subject activity. The use of costume also enhanced the set and created the correct ambience however didn’t distract the viewer.
In contrast to the home scene, when the gang scene and coach scene was being shot, we done it at night, this was to construct a dark ambience. We did this purposely to give a contrast of home (the good, safe and protection) and then the outside (unprotected, bad and dangerous) this was mainly for the gang scene. We wanted the full effect of the streets of London so we used a public road. Again, to ensure we didn’t distract the viewer we had to do numerous shots as there were anachronistic elements such as a car driving by and pedestrians. We were aware that this would make our short film look of a poorer quality.
Effectiveness of the performance of individual actors.
The actors are the most dominant element in the short film. To deliver the storyline as effectively as possible I auditioned a few people interested in plying the characters. I wanted to make sure that they could become the character successfully. The body language of the actors were very important, because there is a monologue involved not many of the characters had dialogue in the scenes. The way they walk, stand and there simple presence in the scene has a huge impact and I wanted the audience to realise this. Especially in the gang scene where the two characters were chilling by a wall, their attitude and status had to become apparent to the audience through the pace of walk and eye contact with other characters.
Effectiveness of the Editing In my role as a cinematographer I ensured that the mise-en-scene was appropriate for our storyline. I created the atmosphere for the different scenes in the short film in the different locations. A home location was used in order to emphasis the effectiveness of the family life and to enhance the significance of the relationship between Marlon and Daniel. The lighting was bright for this scene which was used to work with the atmosphere needed. The props were of furniture and ‘everyday’ life use in the home environment. It is important to create the real life feel in order to connect effectively to the audience. To ensure that I didn’t distract the audience by the background I made sure there was no vibrant colours used to take the attention away from the subject activity. The use of costume also enhanced the set and created the correct ambience however didn’t distract the viewer.
In contrast to the home scene, when the gang scene and coach scene was being shot, we done it at night, this was to construct a dark ambience. We did this purposely to give a contrast of home (the good, safe and protection) and then the outside (unprotected, bad and dangerous) this was mainly for the gang scene. We wanted the full effect of the streets of London so we used a public road. Again, to ensure we didn’t distract the viewer we had to do numerous shots as there were anachronistic elements such as a car driving by and pedestrians. We were aware that this would make our short film look of a poorer quality.
Effectiveness of the performance of individual actors.
The actors are the most dominant element in the short film. To deliver the storyline as effectively as possible I auditioned a few people interested in plying the characters. I wanted to make sure that they could become the character successfully. The body language of the actors were very important, because there is a monologue involved not many of the characters had dialogue in the scenes. The way they walk, stand and there simple presence in the scene has a huge impact and I wanted the audience to realise this. Especially in the gang scene where the two characters were chilling by a wall, their attitude and status had to become apparent to the audience through the pace of walk and eye contact with other characters.
The editing was an extremely important part of the contribution to the effectiveness of the short film. We had to ensure that we didn’t cut out important leading scenes which would cause confusion for the viewer. We used fast cut scenes and multiple shots to pick up the pace of the gang scene, this created tension and a climax to the audience which we done successfully. The use of simple transitions in the gang scene effectively enhanced the climax. We added the monologue and soundtracks so that it is timed correctly with the scenes in the film, ensuring that we don’t leave any gaps in the storyline which may cause confusion where it is not intended. Parts of the monologue had to be cut of the film due to the film only being allowed to be approximately five minutes long. Colour changes were used in the editing to enhance the different time scenes, allowing the audience to make a clear separation of the death of the older brother and the training of the younger brother. The title and credits were added in at the final stages of the editing process this finalised the film, giving it a professional look and completing the tradition norms and conventions which are attached to short films.
In conclusion
My final media text (five minute short film) flowed successfully. The process of putting together the audio, scenes and editing allowed the film to have the effect both myself and Patria had worked towards. The initial idea of displaying an alternative outcome of a young black male, growing up in London had a powerful impact which was supported by the audience feedback. I feel that the monologue gives a personalised feel to the short movie and enhances the relationship between the audience and the character. This manipulates the audience into feeling positive emotions towards the teenagers although past media text has given a negative perception of young black teenagers in London. Throughout the short film there are contrasts of the way the two boys live and the discourse of the media text was to show young people that there is always an alternative route than gangs, even if you are brought up in that environment.
Film Poster
Image
The image I used for the poster was very significant because it showed the viewer a mysterious side. The image of the older brother was the length of the full A4 piece of paper, which enhanced the significance of his character in the film. As I stated above, the film concentrated on the contrasts of the two brother lives even though they are connected. The colour scheme and positioning of the colours clarify this. The black ambient colours are used on the left hand side of the poster; this has connotations to death, danger and negative events which are established in the film. I placed a split down the middle of the A4 paper, outlined by the body shape of the older brother. Opposite the black coloured side is a white background. This is to signify innocence and another life, which is lived by his younger brother.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Once mine and Patria’s main product had been finished we transferred it onto a usb and gathered a group of three people. We all sat down and watched the film and we made sure that we did not tell the audience the storyline. After they had watched the film we asked a series of questions. Below are the questions we asked and the reason we asked them and the responses.
1. What is your initial thought of the short film?(We asked this to gain feedback which will determine how successful our media text had been)
Response 1: "I found it very moving; the audio was very powerful and helped to move the story along. It felt very real and shows everyday life in London"
Response 2: "The film was really good, I really enjoyed it and thought it was very well put together, I could watch it over and over again"
Response 3: "As a young black male myself, I can relate to this film alot. As a young person we do grow up around and in these situations and find the film inspirational and also a reality check."From response one I found that the monologue had the effectiveness me and Patria wanted it too, it added a personalised feeling to the audience and I am really happy that we chose to use non-digenetic sounds other than speech in the scenes.
Response two was just as pleasing, it shows that our editing was effective as it flowed and the member of the audience didn’t find the storyline confusing.
Response three was for me, the best feedback as it shows that the short films had the discourse which I had hope to construct.
Response two was just as pleasing, it shows that our editing was effective as it flowed and the member of the audience didn’t find the storyline confusing.
Response three was for me, the best feedback as it shows that the short films had the discourse which I had hope to construct.
2. What did you understand from the storyline?
(This question was asked in order to see how successful the shots and scenes in the short film are in telling the initial storyline I planned for.)
Response 1: "It was of a young boy who is training for something he has dreamt of and throughout the training he has flashbacks of his brother who died. At the end he goes to
the place that his brother died."
the place that his brother died."
Response 2: "The storyline is of two main characters living different lives with different outcomes. One brother dies and the other lives."
Response 3: "An emotional story which indirectly tells me that a brother really misses his older brother, they had been brought up around violence, drugs and the younger brother strived for success for his brother who died."
3. Putting together the editing, audio and acting how would you improve this short film?
(This is to improve any future projects which we might want to work on)
Response 1: "It was all really good but if it was to be improved I would say to put personal monologues of different character perspectives."
Response 2: "Nothing, it was very good!"
Response 3: "I would say to work on the lighting in the scenes which were filmed outside, at some points i wanted to see more but couldn’t because of the lighting. "
From these three responses I have learnt that in the future I will have to work more on the lighting, admittedly I agree with response number three I don’t feel we planned enough for the dark lighting and therefore had to rely on street lighting. Also, response number one is an extremely good idea, it will give a more modern effect and allow the audience to have an even more personal rapport with the characters.
Although we were satisfied with the responses we got we decided to extend our research by uploading our finished short film onto the social network 'facebook' and then asking our mutual friends to fill out an online questionnaire poll to get a wider amount of feedback.
Here are a few figures to show what we found out:
The age range which the short film appealed to the most was from the ages 14 - 18.
Although we were satisfied with the responses we got we decided to extend our research by uploading our finished short film onto the social network 'facebook' and then asking our mutual friends to fill out an online questionnaire poll to get a wider amount of feedback.
Here are a few figures to show what we found out:
The age range which the short film appealed to the most was from the ages 14 - 18.
26 people took the questionnaire, 18 males and 8 females.
23 people said that they enjoyed mine and Patria's film. This means that majority of the audience found our film a success, however 3 people did not find our film enjoyable.
20 people understood the short film. This means that the majority understood the film, this is important to me and Patria because we was unsure if the monologue and editing would go together smoothly. However, the research proved that it did. We kept the storyline consistent throughout the film.
Majority of the audience found mine and Patria's short film inspiring with a percentage of 58%. We are pleased with this because that is the effect we wished to achieve.
From the table we can see that the monologue was the most effective.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning stages?
New media technology is also known as all the digital assisting attributes in making the product. This ranges from the computer to the software used on the software. Also includes digital pieces of equipment such as the digital camera. The feedback can also be used by the new media technologies, as social network groups such as www.facebook.com can help ‘spread the word’ and make my media project more known. I used this social network to get feedback on my finalised product.
During the research planning I used the search engine www.google.com. This allowed me to retrieve information on different films and short film research. Search engines are designed to locate WebPages world wide. I also used other search engines such as www.askjeeves.com
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| Google Logo Above. |
To watch title sequences and short films made by important people in media such as the Quay Brothers I went on www.youtube.com This is a video sharing website which anybody is free to upload video’s. I found this very useful as it allowed me to research other short films so I became familiar of the conventions of short films, also similar video’s to the genre I wanted to base my film around.
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| You.Tube Logo Above |
I used www.blogger.com to keep an online journal of the research, pre-production and production of my media product and its ancillary tasks. This is a free online website which allowed me to sign on by my Google account. It allows me to upload jpeg pictures and write about my production. It also allows me to connect with others who have their own blog. This was useful as I am working in a group so I ‘followed’ my partner Patria. This can be seen on this page if you scroll all the way to the bottom.
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| Blogger Logo Above |
I used an additional programme to enhance my experience on blogger. Www.scribd.com was another account which allowed me to sign up, this worked with other blogging programmes and allowed me to upload word documents onto my blog. It also allows you to upload various other formats onto blogger. This made blogging much easier as it let me convert documents from my computer onto the blogging system.
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| Scribd Logo Above |
To get a better understanding of films of the same genre I wished to make my film on I watch various different films such as Die Hard and Kidulthood on a HD Television (a telecommunication medium used to broadcast media texts), I also used Sky Plus which is sky digital television network which also acts as a video recorder, allowing you to record films and play them back when you want too.
I used a USB (universal serial bus) to transfer my documents from home to the college computers. IT acted as a storage space for all of the documents I had during this project. It also acted a connection for peripherals (digital cameras ect) it connects external devices to computers allowing you to retrieve documents from them.
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| USB Logo Above |
I used my phone to take pictures of me and Patria filming, this was very handy as the cameras were being used. By using a USB cable I loaded these onto the computer, I also had the choice of sending them via email. I also used the phone to contact the actors on the days of filming.
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| Blackberry Torch 9800 Above |
I used a social network on the following link www.facebook.com to advertise my film. This is a social networking site which I made in 2004 when it was first established, it allows an individual to keep in contact with people who also have the account. It also allows the users to upload pictures, video’s and make comments on them. I used this network as it is a very popular web page which will draw attention to the finished film and I got feedback from the comments which have been mentioned in question three of this evaluation.
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| Facebook Logo |
I used a HD Sony Camera to take pictures of the story board and of other pieces of work and upload these onto my computer, the SD card which all of the pictures save on to gets taken out of the camera and placed into the slot in the laptop and it upload’s from there. The HD Camera is 14.1 mega pixels with excellent performance. It has a 4x zoom with 25mm wide angle. This helped me capture high quality photographs.
I used the programme Paint to convert pictures into JPEG format. I also edited pictures using this software. The programme allowed me to crop, cut and paste pictures from other areas on the computer, add text and change colouring. It was a fairly simple programme to use however didn’t have all the features which the Adobe software did.
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| Paint Programme Above |
I used Adobe Photoshop Cs5 to create my film review and poster. Adobe Photoshop is a editing software which includes 3D breakthrough options, painting and editing. It is more advanced than the standard Photoshop software which improved the quality of my poster. This software allowed me to add text to my ancillary tasks, import pictures and change the colouring, add effects and crop them. I could of done a lot more with my poster and film review however I decided to keep it simple.
I used Microsoft Powerpoint to create some documents, this made it easier for me and my partner to post information onto the blog. Each slide could be saved in a Jpeg format and uploaded onto the blog. We also used Powerpoint to create collage’s and mind maps. We also did a small presentation to the actors in the film about how we needed each character to be perceived by the audience so they had a fuller understanding of their role.
Adobe Premiere Elements was used to load the footage which we shot onto this software. This software allowed us to edit the footage and add effects where needed to create the atmosphere relevant to the genre we chose. All print screens taken from the editing process were taken from Adobe Premiere Elements. It enabled us to use various different editing techniques which we would not have been able to use to our advantage on more simple programmes. I found that this software was extremely effective for our production and allowed us to create moods with simple footage which we had shot.
Freeplay is a website online which we researched and und relevant music for the genre of our production. It is a useful site as it hold many different types of music and sounds suitable for different genre's
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