Final Evaluation - Gareth Allen

Evaluation for Blog

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

· The Social Realism in our film has been used to target the audience so that they feel they can relate to the film themselves. This was done by the main character driving along day to day roads and we see him acting as if it is a normal day in his life.

· We also used thriller aspects in our film so that there isn’t just the one aspect in the film. We tried to make the unknown figure, kept unknown so the audience are questioning who they are.

· We didn’t use the technique of Mike Leigh’s where the characters are at different extremes of each other (mainly because there is only the one character and they didn’t use any dialogue throughout).

· The sounds used throughout are similar to other shorts in how we used both diegetic and non diegetic sounds in the film. This is used in other shorts such as ‘Joy Ride’, ‘Eight’ and ‘Slap’. We used mostly non diegetic sounds, such as the soundtrack at the start, middle and end of the film, except for the phone going, the car horn and the only words used at the end of the film.

· For editing this short, we felt that in traditional films, they use dissolve transitions to show a difference between time and we used this to indicate the difference between the dream world of the character, and the reality world. We also changed the soundtrack along with these transitions during the film.

• Mixtape uses music to express what is happening with little dialogue. We used this as inspiration for our film, we liked the idea of using hardly and dialogue and using music to express what was happening in our film. Mixtape uses music to show how one young child feels for another it sets the scene with an upbeat tempo. we wanted to use music rather than dialogue because it meant we could use faced paced music to make the audience feel on edge, we also sped up part of our film and we wanted to add something fast paced with a beat to it to add top the effect of going at a high speed.
• We used a variety of different editing techniques, we included a slowed down rewound clip of someone being run over. Traditionally in films this effect is used to show something that has happened or something that is about to happen. We used this effect as a memory that would appear frequently thought the film as flashbacks.


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

• I think that our two ancillary tasks the film review and the poster link both well together and with the film itself. We wanted the audience to question what was happening in the film and add some mystery to this so we felt we should do this with the poster also.

• We didn’t want the poster to give too much away so we used the film Red Road’s poster as inspiration for ours we tried to keep it as simple as possible.
• We used a shilloute as our main image to add the added effect of mystery which we also wanted to show in our film. Also the fact that the mysterious character that matt is chasings identity isn’t know the poster goes along with this kind of idea of no identities being known and nothing about the film is being given away.
• The bright background also makes the poster stand out and catch the audience’s eye, it also goes with the idea that matt has to wear a florescent jacket in the film and the florescent jacket he is also wearing in the image used for the review.
  

• We tried to create the review in the same format as in little white lies. We used an image from the film at the top of the page lie most of the articles have in the magazine. We also included the small colorued boxes on the left top corner above the text like the magazine does. We wanted it to look as realistic as possible like it belongs in the magazine.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

• We have received several positive comments form our audience to get these comments we posted out film and a blog link on Facebook and received some comments through here and also through You Tube itself.
  

• From these comments we have learnt that our film has worked very well using the conventions we decided on. Though many people were confused as to why our character was running around a scarp yard once we explained the story in detail to them they completely understood.
• We have had many positive comments on the soundtrack of our film and our audience have said it really adds to the feeling of the film.
  

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

• During the creation of our short film we were quite successful in using many different types of digital technology. These included two digital cameras to film with using mini DV tapes. I found these quite easy to use as we had used them last year however one of them filmed in wide screen and one of them did not we had to change this in final cut which I did not no how to do but was shown.
• We used final cut pro which I had some knowledge of how to use but learnt a lot of new skills on this program, these included how to slow scenes down and speed scenes up also how to rewind scenes and resize them so that they are wide screen.

http://files.lynda.com/files/finalcutstudio/index.html#fcp7

• We used garage band to create the soundtrack to our film however I didn’t really use garage band much as I didn’t play a big part in creating the sound but I did learn how to convert the files into an MP3 format to add to our film. I also learnt in final cut pro how to change the volume of clips meaning we could get rid of all the background noise and add music. I also learnt how to fade the music in and out which I did not no how to use before.
  

• The only we problem we seemed to have was with one of the cameras we were originally using a camera that Gareth had but when we went to log our work we found out it wasn’t possible as the camera was using a cassette sized tape and we should have been using mini DV’s. When we finally managed to log out work we saw it was of poor quality and we would defiantly not be able to use it so we took the decision to re-film with two digital cameras that used mini DV tapes.
• The blog was a big use of new media digital technology in the creating of our short film. I didn’t need to learn much to use the blog as we had used one last year. However I did learn how to upload links to with our film such as inspiration for our film and the link to our film itself. We had trouble at first working out how to upload our anamatic onto the blog but soon worked it out and didn’t have any trouble uploading our final film onto it. I also learnt how to upload images onto the blog as I did not now how to do this before and found it was quite easy once I new. This helped as then it was easy to upload the storyboard and various images to go with my research for the film and also images for the poster research and the initial poster ideas.

Essay Evaluation - Chloe McGlinchey

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

• The use of Social Realism in our film has been used to target the audience in a way which also connects to them. We had achieved this by using a young cast who were drivers and including the dangers and reality of falling asleep at the wheel and cause major disruption to other drivers on the road.
• During our film we also included some thriller. We added a mysterious figure to the story so the audience is thinking about what is happening all the while the film is playing and hopefully sending them about the dangers of being tired and driving.
• Looking at some of Andrea Arnolds work and again at our own film I have noticed some differences at the different aspects of Social Realism some including dialogue, camera work and soundtrack.
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• The sounds used during our film are similar to the lines of short films “Joyride” “Eight and Slap” we mainly used non-diegetic sounds such as the soundtrack (as we used garage band to make our own music to make it feel more unique and individual) which carried through the start, middle and end of the film.
• Editing our film came to be a bit of a struggle due to have a lot of different shots and then trying to piece everything together like a jigsaw to make it all flow. The similarities to other traditional films include using dissolving transitions to show differences in date and time. We also used this for the flashbacks in the film and allowing the audience to be slightly dazed and confused about the film.

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary task?


• Our poster I believe to be fairly effective as it makes the audience think what the film may be about. However it doesn't give away any of the storyline. the colours contrast each other yet they work extremely well together to give the poster a more professional feel to it. Our inspiration for the designing of the poster was "Red Road" simply because of its effect and simplicity and as soon as we saw it, it caught our eye.
Not much text on either posters makes the posters much simpler and eye catching because of the colours that have been used.
The character is looking down and is silhouetted which gives the film a mysterious feeling.

• The review that was created for our film was written as though being published for "Little White Lies". We tried to be "chatty" yet formative throughout the written piece, making it personal to the reader. Also giving good reputation for both the film and magazine it was advertised it.
• We included an image in the bottom corner of the review as similarily featured in "Little White Lies" we wanted the review to be as realistic as though it would be published in the magazine, in that case we would have to include alot of detail to go into our review to make it seem enot so different from other reviews in the magazine.

• Because the target audience was aimed at males and females aged from 15 - 25, we used language that was understandable to everyone. Also "Little White Lies" do not usually include words that are challenging and want to connect with their readers in order to widen their target audience in order to boost their reputation therefore resulting in more sales of the magazine which will both give the film and magazine good media coverage.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• Looking back at our audience feedback we had received several positive comments from our target audience as we had posted our film on YouTube, then from there we had posted a link on facebook aswell as setting up a group and asking for peoples general thoughts. We had also sent an attachment using e-mail for those who may not have facebook or various other reasons.
• Looking and discussing the comments that were made we had noticed a repeat pattern of people saying about how they were slightly confused about what the film and placement was about. We overcame this by explaining our film in full detail and also giving them the film synopsis also to read which then after being explained to they was then in understandment of what went on.
• The conventions of well known film directors: Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Andrea Arnold. Differ in many ways in our film, these directors give out their characters lives more or less straight away. Where as we done the total opposite and chose not to show our characters lifestyles at all.
• Many positive comments were also made on the soundtrack of the film, the audience saying that was our strongest point making our film enjoyable and more effective. As the music flowed well with all of our scenes and shots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch=?v=F6bMj1kTWE
• Our audience was aimed at males and females aged from 15 - 25, because of the type of message we had put across to our audience including driving scenes we thought we would put it as a 15 due to the fact who we actually trying to target.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and the evaluation stage?

• During the editing process i had learnt alot of different techniques and also using the same knowledge of the Foundation Portfolio. As other members of the group were able to use the best of their abilities with Final Cut Pro; i was able to learn from both their and my own mistakes and together we were able to produce a decent short film, If i were to any of it again i would perhaps find out more techniques that may of been successful at the editing process.
• Using garage band again i really enjoyed as i was able to play around a bit more freely and comfortably as i was made one of the "music makers" in the film. Mixing our own sounds gave us all a boost of confidence that we had definitely achieved a successful film and soundtrack, which all recieved positive feedback. During the process of making the soundtrack we did have a bit of a joke around with some of the sounds, but doing this we actually had included some sounds into our final piece as in a weird way it definitely flowed better.
• The blog allowed us to be responsible for our own posts giving us the opportunity to express our own feelings and opinion to what research we had done. And what work we had produced as a group. Being able to add videos and images to the blog gave it more character and gives people a feeling to our group personality with alot of information with doesn't overload people. Planning and research stages i felt were a lot more controlled and thorough as we all done our own individual research yet always come back as a group to discuss what we had watched, read and seen over the time we had. This also allowed us to talk about each others post explaining things others may not have of understood or recommended films that we had spoken about in our posts. We were also given freedom on our own drafts for what we would like our Ancillary Tasks to be like, Researching other posters and reviews gave us ideas of what we should include in our product.
• My part in the ancillary task definitely allowed me to show what i was good at. Having been studying Photoshop in more depth in other A2 lessons i did have a knowledge of what i was actually doing therefore being able to produce a fairly high quality professional looking poster. If i were to recreate the poster i may think about redoing the layout maybe so the figure is faced the other way and different colours and fonts on the poster itself.

Final Advanced Portfolio Evaluation - Matt Bull

(click each section to enlarge & zoom in)

Audience Feedback

‘well done, its really good! didn't quite understand the bit about the scrapyard though (I'm probably just missing something! lol)
The background music and filming were spot-on and I liked the way the scene was set at the beginning with the re-wind. Very impressed!’.- left on our video on youtube

'Good start, middle and great finish! Wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for in scrap yard..(new bumper..or boy in accident??) Loved the accompanying music. Well done'.- Left via facebook

'was very good but im not quite sure what was happening when he was running around the scrap yeard. i really liked the muisic it really set the scene and thought it was very good overall'- Danny Clough

' I didnt really understand what was happening, why was he running round bridges? it just confused me. the music was really good though. good job'- Luke Chesham

Final Ancillary Tasks - Matt Bull, Gareth Allen, Chloe McGlinchey & Hannah Sell

These are the final ancillary tasks for our advanced portfolio.

Matt Bull, Gareth Allen, Chloe McGlinchey & Hannah Sell