Post 19d

Evaluation Questions and Tasks

Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

What is new media technologies?
'We define "new media" as interactive forms of communication that use the Internet, including podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds and more!
New media makes it possible for anyone to create, modify, and share content and share it with others, using relatively simple tools that are often free or inexpensive. New media requires a computer or mobile device with Internet access'. - (follow this link to find source)

'New media is a catch-all term for all forms of electronic communication that have appeared or will appear since the original mainly text-and-static picture forms of online communication'. - (follow this link to find source)

Below is an image of all of the new media technology I used when creating my media product. I have used a montage of images as well as annotations to show the new media technologies I have used and for what purpose.

1) Blogger - Blogger is classed as a new media technology and is an online website where you are able to sign up and post blogs on a topic of your choice, from media work to a general day to day use. Blogger is one of the most important and well used media technology I have use throughout the course. It works as an online portfolio working with other programs like 'YouTube' as a platform for us to show our media work. Blogger allows us to edit, add and delete parts of our work easily. With the easy use of being able to link your work, add photos, videos, links, sound clips and drafting your work before posting it and even being able to edit the HTML coding yourself. All of my work displayed on this software has been put onto my blog using these techniques. Blogger is an easy to access site and very efficient. This site was very useful throughout AS and A2 media and the coursework would have been significantly difficult if we didn't have blogger. The ability to write the coursework on this software makes it easier to do in an IT advanced society.

2) Photoshop - Photoshop is the programme where I have edited all the images I needed within my A2, the software is very complex but we are able to find out any instructions about it on the internet. This was very helpful for me as before A2 media I had never used photoshop before so I had to learn the basics before I could start. Although it took me quite a lot of time to understand it and become fluent when using it, I consider it to be a useful software to use as gives you the best quality product. I used this software mostly when creating my postcard front and back and my film review. Using photoshop has been very effective when creating my postcard and film review. It helped me to manipulate images to create a great effect. 

3) Canon 550D - This new media technology was crucial when looking at the pratical side to my coursework. With the use of my camera as well as the teachers camera my coursework could have suffered. I used it to take photos for my postcard and my film review. I also used it to take pictures when we were filming this was so we could use these as evidence as well as using them to make my blog more visual through the pre-production, production and post-production. I also used the camera to take photos for the location reeces in the pre-production stage. The camera was a vital piece of equipment within my media production, the shots taken were a high quality due to how advanced the camera was. Without the camera it would have been difficult to take photos for my postcard to a high standard and quality.    

4) Adobe Premiere Pro - This new media technology was provided by the school and the software that we used to edit all of our media products. I used this software to capture, create a rough cut, and edit both the visuals and the audio. This software was easily laid out with useful tools and effects to make Adobe Premier Pro the ideal programme for us to use. Without the use of Adobe Premier Pro the editing process of our project would have been more difficult. Adobe Premier Pro gives off a high quality product which is not found in many other editing softwares.  

5) Internet Explorer -  I used this new media technology to do my research throughout the process of pre-production, production and post-production. Internet Explorer was a useful software when looking at trying to research into background information as well as looking for visuals. Without this software I would have struggled to find out things I didn't understand or look up defintions from other people on a media term.

6) Wikepedia - This software enabled me to research from a well-known source into any information or topic I needed to know. It provided me with information throughout the course from information of certain films, media technologies and rules that are set when filming like the 180 degree rule. Wikepedia was a very useful website as it was able to give me information on nearly every topic. Without this website I would of needed to use other search engines to find the information needed.

7) Copyright free music channel - This new media technology was used mainly in the post-production stage. I used this software mainly to find uncopyrighted music to put at the start and end of my film. This was one of the most vital pieces within the A2 course. As we were not able to use uncopyrighted music of a high quality we were recommended to use this website by our school so we could find uncopyrighted music of a high quality and from a reliable source. This website had different audio tracks that were uncopyrighted from a variety of genres. Without the use of this website we wouldn't have been able to access music so easily and it would have resulted in us having to pay for uncopyrighted music or we would of had to create our own sounds or as a last resort having to get rid of music altogether which could have significantly reduced the quality of our work.

8) Flip camera -  The flip camera that was provided to us by the school was a piece of new media technology we used. The flip camera enabled us to use different styles when presenting our work. The flip camera was used majorly when gaining our audience feedback, we used this easy, portable camera to video our target audience giving feedback on our film. This was a useful piece of equipment in the pre-production and the evaluation as we were able to collect feedback that we could then evaluate. The flip camera was useful in the sense that I was able to provide more information without having to type it out and also allowed me to gain a higher mark for using different types of IT. If the flip camera was not available to us we would have struggled to make our videos and would of had to use a different type of video camera of a reasonably good quality.

9) PD150 Camera - This piece of equipment is a high definition and quality camera that we used in our A2 pratical section of the coursework to shoot our short film and we felt that having used a lower quality camera last year that the difference was definately noticable and that this year the quality of our project was a lot more advanced in terms of the visual as well as the audio. If we didn't have this camera then we would have struggled to make such a high quality film and would of had to comprimise with the cameras we used last year.

10) YouTube - This new media technology is a widely recognised and highly used website that helped me during the course of media studies in AS as well as A2. It was especially useful when researching into short films in the pre-production as I had never really taken an interest in short films before YouTube helped me to research into the format and layout of short films and how others with a more professional background made their short films and the length as well as the different narratives as well as genres. YouTube is also an important software for the distribution of your film. It helps you to distribute your short film to wider audiences. YouTube also helped not only to gain an understanding of the format of short films as well as the distribution of them. Youtube was also my main software after creating videos as I put them onto YouTube to transfer them onto my blog, to create more visual elements within the coursework. Without the use of YouTube I would have struggled to complete all the tasks explained earlier and to distribute my film I would have needed to have attended short film festivals to get my film widely recognized.

Post 19c

Evaluation Questions and Tasks

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Short Film

Postcard

Film Review

My responses and reflections on my feedback
I feel that the feedback I got from all three products really helped me to reflect on my products, analysing them on their strengths and weaknesses and how I could change them to make them better and more appealing to my target audience.

The first of my three products I looked at was my short film. One of the popular comments I got from my audience was that some of the acting was poor. Due to the short amount of time we had in the pre-production and production we struggled to find very professional and experienced actors throughout the whole film. We managed to get professional actors for the main characters however due to the limited time limit we felt that it was more important to spend time on the pre production parts like the technical reece's rather than finding professional actors for the whole product as this would be really difficult. Another comment that we recieved was the fact that they felt that the film needed more music throughout I felt that this was a good point. Music is a great way of setting the mood and keeping the audience engaged and if I went back and improved on my film I would defiantely take this point into consideration. One member of my audience that gave feedback didn't like how short it was and felt it could have been developed out. I would take this on board in the future however our aim was to make a short film and therefore I felt that if we had made our film any longer it would not have stuck to its aim. The next comment was the fact the football match didn't look very realistic. I feel that this was true and looking back on my project I would have given the scenes with the football matches a lot more time and organisation. This would have made the football match a lot more realistic as we could have got a lot more players.

The second of my three products that I got feedback from was my postcard for my short film. My audience really like this section out of all of my products. One criticism they did have of my postcard was the amount of text displayed. The audience felt that there was too much and although they liked the fact that it gave out a lot of detail. They felt that for a postcard it needed to be shortened so that they can quickly recognise the important parts of what they needed to know rather than having to try and filter through. If I was to make a postcard again to distribute a short film I would take this into consideration as I feel that as the audience we just want to know the basics so we can get the 'gist' of whether this film is for the individual or not.

The last of my three products that I analysed was my film review. One section of the audience stated that they didn't like the lines at the top of the page as it made it feel tightly packed in and hard to read. I feel that next time to improve I will look into the forrmat of reviews to see if I can space it out more so it is displayed more clearly. The audience also felt it was quite plain and not very eye catching I feel to change this I could add more colour to my review, but sophisticated colours to keep with the style of the review.

Overall I feel that the majority of the audince like my three finished products and the only weaknesses they felt were found were small and only minor points.

Post 19b

Evaluation Questions and Tasks
Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Below I am going to analyse and compare the similarities of my three products. This includes my short film, postcard and film review. The objective of this is to see how effective the combination of my three tasks is.

Similarity 1

This combination of my short film and ancillary tasks all show a similar common theme coming up of secrecy. My short film is about a young teenage boy who is unsure of his sexuality however by the end of the film he chooses Ashley to be with revealing that he is actually gay. However throughout the film this is kept secret because he knows if it gets out he will lose his status. This links to my review as well because as the highlighted text above displays if the secret gets out it will jeopardize his high status meaning he has to keep this to himself. This is finally shown in the postcard the zip displayed across the image symbolizes that he should keep quiet. This means that all three products link to the theme of secrecy.

Similarity 2

Between the combination of my film review, postcard and short film I have mentioned the cast and crew names. This in my opinion is a very important attribute as not only can they be seen as a USP because we are new to the film industry and therefore our styke if filming is different to others but also these people were very important in the making of the film and therefore should be mentioned.

Similarity 3

 From this image we see that we were very effective in combining the three products. In all three the main character is displayed. This is because the film follows his difficult journey into the discovery of his sexuality. The  film is based around the character of James and therefore he is the main central point to all three of my products as this reflects what the film is about.
Similarity 4

I was also effective in combining the products in terms of the hidden feminine aspects that give the audience little hints into James' real sexuality. In the film we have put in little hints and symbols that are stereotypically linked to femininity, for example the purple flower seen in the screenshot above. This was also mentioned in the film review to give the audience little hints. The final product this is found in is the postcard. I have used this idea of hidden femininity in my title where I have used a pink. This gives the audience little hints but cant however guess what it is. It is also found in the postcard with the heart zip as hearts are also seen as a sign of femininity.



Post 19a

Evaluation Questions and Tasks

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Once all my media products were finished, the short film, postcard and film review I then looked at whether my work developed or challenged forms and conventions of real media products.

My Film

1. The first screenshot shows the title of our film which is the first image the audience will see when they watch our film. This develops conventions as it is found regularly in short films, for example in the short film Late Bloomer, the link for the video is shown below:
Late Bloomer
It is common for short films to begin with the title of the film and I have therefore stuck to this convention. In some ways I like this layout with the title at the beginning as it can give the audience clues to what the film is about through the title and is a nice way into leaading the audience into the opening of a film and giving clues into whats to come.

2. The second screenshot is of our crew names, this is also a convention of films, which I found in my research last year when looking at title sequences. These crew names in our case and also in other films are at the beginning of our film after the title these are our USP, as we are almost 'new to the business', audiences will not have seen a film made by this crew and therefore will not have seen the style or techniques that our crew have used making it different and unique.

3. The third screenshot from our short film is the first shot we see from the film, it is an establishing shot of James. Having the first shot of the film being the main character is very conventional, this gives the audience a clear welcoming into the film and establishes the audience with the main character to give them a nice, clear opening.

4. Throughout our film we have chosen to use text messaging. In the short films I have watched during my research I have not seen this, however from other research and previous knowledge, tackling social issues are usually caused through cyber bullying and this is what I wanted to portray when looking at my short film. Teenagers at school tend to communicate mainly through text and to portray their age group we used text to do this, we also felt that putting these questions to James through text also makes who they are hidden, this helped us to enforce the fact that the audience didn't know who Ashley really was. This therefore meant that to my knowledge texts broke the conventions of our film.

5. The fifth shot from our film shows an estblishing shot of James' girlfriend. In the genre of film we chose to use, the girlfriend is prominent and a major part to the film. In this respect we therefore did stick to the conventions. To also highlight her importance we chose to dress her in red as this symbolises lust and also danger. The danger is a minor hint to show something is not quite right between James and Roxanne and is a hint to show that he shouldn't be with Roxanne but with Ashley.

6. This shot also enforces Emily's character.However this breaks conventions as we see Emily from the first instance as a horrible character and not one that James should really be with. They are not seen as a happy couple, more of one that is they use as a convienence to holding on to their high status.       

7. This shot is immediately after we see the revalation of Roxanne's character and this then straight away shows the caring and nice character of James as he picks uo the young childs books after Roxanne purposely knocks them out of his hands. James being the likeable character compared to Roxanne who the audience shouldn't like. This then leads the audience into being satisfied with the ending as the audience should find Ashley and James more of a likeable couple to James and Roxanne.

8. This shot is not a convention of our genre of film however it does link to the title of our film. Football is the main item that gives James his status and this shot that is shown in the screengrab shows James very engaged in the match we see James popularity through this, we see his confidence and we see the dilemma he has as he will lose this if he chooses Ashley over Roxanne.

9.  This in my opinion is a very shocking scene within our film but however is almost a convention as well as a sterotype. This is a very prominent image that looks at the outcome of some of these issues found in society. This is a very gripping image and can target the audience to show them the outcome of somes actions and can teach the auience a moral lesson. From this part of the media product we can see that it sticks to conventions because it teaches the audience moral lessons and has a purposeful meaning behind the film which I found when I researched into other short films that had been made.

10. This image gives off a similar message to the one above. It looks at the socio-realist idea of bullying which happens to lots of people in their life. This image again is a convention as it looks at these issues and gives across a moral message that this is wrong which is found within many other films I have watched. 

11. This is an image where the sound was dropped out which we were influenced by Jon-Luke Goddard. This usually isn't conventional in short films and many directors haven't used this however we felt that this was worked really well in this part of the film as it shows James shutting Roxanne out. This is another minor hint to show James is not interested, he has other things on his mind.

12. This image is very stereotypical and prominent and is very common in the genre of film we have used. It also shows a lot about the character of James as well. This is because it shows his character to be easily influenced and someone who will just stick to their comfort zone.

13. This is the second time when we see James in goal however again we see the sound dropped. This again has the same effect as before and shows that in this second football match he is not concentrating he is distracted. This is not usually conventional in films however has a purpose within our film.

14. This shot shows a football match. This is not conventional within these types of films but however is used as a symbol to show James' masculinity. Football is his comfort zone and what gives him his 'Status'. Rather than a convention this is a symbol to show his masculinity to take away the audience realisation of the twist.

15. This is a prominent image at the end of our film and finishes it off nicely. This shot within the film is very conventional of the genre of film and also in a lot of short films as well as mainstream films that I have watched they tend to end with a prominent image. One that will leave the audience satisfied. From my research however it is known that American films tend to leave the audience in a happy state whereas British films tend to be more troubling and finish on a sad note. An example of this is in the film 'The Vanishing' where in the British version the woman dies whereas in the American version the woman survives and we have a happy ending. In our film and especially in this shot we wanted to leave our audience satisfied and in this sense we broke conventions as our aim was to produce a short British film but instead of giving it a sad ending we left the saudience satisfied that it was James and Joel that were together.

16. This is very coventional of films and especially short films, this creates a nice ending giving credit to all the actors involved and showing the audience which actors played their parts. In most short films and also other longer films I have watched their are rolling credits at the end of the film to finish it off.

My Postcard

My Film Review

Post 18

Final Products

Short film 'Status'

Postcard for my film

Film Review

Words for the review

New to the business, director Kelly Brown introduces a heartwarming short film focusing on tackling controversial issues found within the local communities across 21^st century England. Set in the filmic style of Jean Luke Goddard and French New Wave, Status looks at James, a student found in the heart of Kings Langley. Still at school we see him struggling to find out who he really is and what he wants in life. Faced with a series of questions and the choice of several paths to take with a sequence of scenarios, we will trace his journey as he has to make difficult choices and decisions that could change his life forever.

James, one of the ‘lads’ has a difficult journey, having to choose between following his heart or succumbing to the pressures of society.  James seemingly has it all, popularity, looks, money, a car, he is dating the most popular girl in school and he is the captain of his school’s football team. However, things aren’t always as they seem. An underlying conflict threatens his eminent status. The major twist within the plot grasps the audience’s attentionfrom the onset, and delivers a gripping tale that is sure to leave the audience shocked, with their views on society changed as Status is sure to deliver a performance they are not likely to forget.

With his popularity and reputation at risk, James, struggles through a tough week, trying to make sense of the decisions he knows he cannot avoid. With his girlfriend, Roxanne’s, fiery personality and needy attitude, James decided he has had enough and he finally wants happiness and is willing to sacrifice everything he holds.

Ashley acts as a catalyst, as increasing pressures build on James, as James finally realizes he wants happiness over his status, and is willing to lose it all.

Michael Hale from London commented: Status is a refreshing new film tackling issues facing society today. The gripping plot held me mesmerized from start to finish. The acting was professional and very naturalistic. I was kept on the edge of my seat from start to finish, in anticipation to see how the plot would unfurl, and how James would cope with the emotional conflict he was facing.

Post 17

Post-Production Report

The first step to editing our film after it had all been filmed on the camera was to capture the scenes we needed to edit. To do this we plugged the camera into the editing suite and viewed all our footage. Whilst viewing our footage we then made a logging rushes table where we had to make decisions into what takes of each shot we wanted to keep for our final production. In this table we had the in code, where the clip started, out code, where the clip ends, the scene, shot and take, a description of what happens within that scene and a column to write down whether we wanted that scene or not. Below is the logging rushes table for our short film ‘Status’. After we had finished our table we then had to capture the clips we said we wanted to keep.

Once we had filtered through all our footage so we had left only the scenes that had been captured we then made a rough cut of our film. We went through each captured clip individually cutting it to the parts of the clips we wanted, cutting out unnecessary sounds like ‘action’ or ‘cut’. Once this was done we then added them together creating a rough cut of our film, a simple version to see what our film might look like. Now this was done we ran the whole of our rough cut through looking for continuity issues. Concentrating on the visuals we were able to see whether our short film so far worked. This is the point where we saw the issues mentioned in my production blog post so to make the visuals work we then went to re-film this. Once the re-filmed footage had been through the stages mentioned before and inserted into the rest of the rough cut we then had a basis for our film and the visuals.

This then led to the next stage of the editing process which was to sort out the sound, looking at the sound levels so far of our film. The first stage was to mix the sound of each clip together. This consisted of adding sound dots so we could control sound levels. The main reason for mixing sound when we were editing was so that the film would not only flow in the visuals but also the audio. Once the sound had been mixed we then had the job of making sure the middle parts of each clip had the right sound levels as some clips were a lot louder than others. This just consisted of putting in more sound dots and moving them up down carefully to control the volumes of each clip. We found that because we had not experimented or used a microphone with such sensitivity before, we had a variety of sound issues. Some that consisted of the microphone picking up unwanted background noise and others where the sound just cut off completely. This created more problems when it came to editing as there was unwanted sound that needed to be fixed. However this easily done by controlling levels and using sound from previous takes where the audio has worked really well.

After the visuals and audio had been completed we felt that it was best to get our teacher to look at our film. This is because she can look at it from a professional stand and from her previous experience will be able to spot minor or major mistakes we may have made.  So after we asked her politely, she sat down and watched our ‘draft’ and as she watched it she wrote down some notes about what needed to do to improve our film. One of the main changes she made was the end scene. Originally we wanted to have the camera pan up to the sky. However our teacher felt that this didn’t look as good as our film, so as a group we looked at the effects on the editing and decided to put an effect on our end shot of the hands because we felt that this is one of the most iconic scenes in the last scene. She also said that we needed to think about our transitions between scenes. She asked us what style of film we were looking at, because this will affect the way we move from scene to scene. We felt the best way to go from each scene was to cross dissolve out and then hard cut in as this fitted in with our film well.  

Once the visuals and the audio were both done so they were to the standards that we had set ourselves we then had to complete the fine details for the rest of our film. The first small detail we needed to complete was the music we wanted, to look for the music we went onto the site unsignedbands.web where we found a song to use for the start and end of our film which is displayed below:

Once the music had been added to our film at the start and end, we then had to add in the title sequence also at the start and the end of the film.  The title of our film and the font had already been sorted by one member of our group who wanted to use this for our film. We then added in the job roles that each member of the group performed in order of importance in our opinion. We also then entered the end credits where we decided we wanted to use the effect on the editing suite 'rolling credits' where we listed the character names and actors in order of importance and most appearance. The second minor detail was to add the texts in to my film. Not only the texts he recieves from Ashley but also the text he sends. For inspiration we looked at the messaging system on my phone and what it looked like when I recieve texts and tried to replicate this. We then wanted the text James texts back to come up to the audience on screen as James types it. To do this we put in each individual letter into the editing suite so it will run like it is being text.   

Once this was done it then meant we had finished the editing for our short film and all we had left to do wasto render our film.This year the editing process was a lot easier as we had a lot more experience as we used Adobe Premier Pro last year and we could work our way around this software easily and quickly.