Evaluation - Curtis

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop 

or challenge forms and conventions of real media 

products?

9 Frame Analysis of Films which inspired me during the short film process. 

• Narrative - Out of the 4 films above the short film 'Tick Tock' had the most inspirational narrative, usually with short film I found that the narrative was kept very simple however with this film they really thought about it. 'Tick Tock' has a narrative mainly revolving around a young male, who is tricked into thinking he only has a certain about of time to live so he try's to fix what wrong he has done while he can. Although this may sound like a simple narrative it is actually in the format of restricted narrative due to it being in reverse. This is a technique used by the editors to enforce the message "Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important." This clever narrative style also provides a block towards the spectator as we don't know what triggered the event. The films chronology order is non linear as it events are reversed; through the theory of Todorov, the film ‘Tick Tock’ is split into stages, it starts with the resolution and finishes with the equilibrium. This is to confuse the audience and to make them more engaged, it causes them to want to continue to watch it to see what the reason for him only having a few days to live.

• Character Representation - In terms of character representation, I have found with short films to expect the unexpected. What I mean is that they usually come away from the Hollywood tradition e.g. 'men as the superior force'. Roles can be completely reversed from what the average viewer is used to, men play women's lives, women play mens. Furthermore from the short films I have seen there is a lot of mistaken identity which occurs, for example in the short film 'Lovefield' just because of the way the film is portrayed using a lot of thriller & horror conventions and the mise en scene we as the audience are lead to believe that the farmer-like male character is a murderer, when in fact it turns out he was helping to deliver a baby. Maybe to explore the idea we are still to this day stereotyping a book by it's cover before knowing the facts and figures. 

         - There seems to be a lot of modern stereotypes, in the short film 'Elevator' there            is quite a bold stereotype which explores contemporary issues in society (modern day obesity levels in the United States), although this may not be a positive stereotype it does display it in a humorous un-offending manor. 

- In the few short films I have chosen above the men are still the most dominant as they have the main roles in each short film, thus still providing traditional stereotypes, men being the 4 main characters in each film. However the females don't have real traditional roles within the short films, in 'Elevator' the women's background roles are shared out the same as the males, furthermore the woman in 'Tick Tock' seems to be the more dominant force which shows a modern strong female representation showing maybe a change is force and power, so areas of traditional and modern stereotypes are being shown in different ways. 

•  Characterization - Characterization is very different in short film, obviously because the film isn't long enough to establish about the characters involved too much. As a result generally the director uses the mise en scene to help the audience identify about the characters. However because the short films are usually very simple and short there is no need to build a big relationship with the character and the audience, usually there is no need for the audience to know that much about the main character's background, just the present. For example in "The black hole" you can tell from the characters costuming 'smart shirt & trousers' & the location 'office' that he is a male who works for a paper company which is all you really need to know for the basic storyline.

• Camerawork - I have found that short films use more creative and artistic forms of camerawork, they tend to be more in your face with close up shots and extreme close up shots. This type of unique camerawork is used in short films because they are usually independent films therefore the directors try to convey a more independent approach towards the technical features. As shown in frames '4' & '5' in the short film 'memories' both screen shots are up and close with the character with specific framing. This conveys a distinctive and direct atmosphere as it focuses more on individual mise en scene in the film to show importance.

• Sound - Short films generally have very little diegetic sound, actions and points are usually conveyed through action, and atmosphere is conveyed through a non-diegetic independent soundtrack. In the short film 'Memories' the atmosphere is created through a non-diegetic down beat piano piece which helps set a very sad tone, In terms of diegetic sound there is no character speech, the only diegetic sound heard is that of the miss en scene. 

• Mise en scene - Typical Mise en scene in short film which has inspired me is a hard question to answer, however I have noticed a few patterns within short films, generally they seem quite limited in terms of location as directors usually try and build a story without too much complication, if a short film has a lot of locations then it would be hard to understand what is going on, there needs a be content in each mise en scene setting to ensure there is a connection with the audience. As illustrated in my 9 frames the short film 'Lovefield' is based in one location, an American rural field. 

• Use of genre conventions - Typical genre for short films I have found to be 'drama', this is because they are generally about real life situations and contemporary issues, an example is 'Memories', I can identify from this film the genre 'Drama' as it is a realistic situation where social realism is imbedded to form a life story in some respects, it just displays a series of events of where a mans memory is slowly killing vital memories of his past. Short films usually use genre to help identify the appropriate audience for the film itself, as short films are not usually well known, to help them gain recognition they are normally subject to a genre heading where audience who want to visit that subject would go to that chosen genre category. Technical codes were used in this film which also in turn is a genre convention for example the cinematic usage of the way the camera blending into the celluloid image to create a dissolve into a memory he currently holds to indicate the real life feel as it provides a flashback indicator to the audience. Another typical feature of a genre convention is the non-diegetic background music in 'Memories'  this not only sets the dramatic tone but highlights a certain mood and atmosphere.

• Themes and issues - Short films tend to have an issue which the film is based around, whether it is a small or large issue, however because the majority of the films are modern they have contemporary modern issues. The issue obviously links with the theme of the film as it surrounds the storyline, In the film 'Memories' the film deals with the issue of suffering from Alzheimer's at old age, it deals with this issue as the main and only real character in this film has this condition, as the film goes on you can see it dramatically affecting him. This is a contemporary mental issue which affects many people in the world, it reaches out to people who have been affected by this condition whether they have it or people they know do. 

• Editing/post production - A common feature of editing/post production for short film that I have identified is the editing of the colour of the moving images, this device is used to implement a certain mood in then film, during the post production process editors often change the saturation, colour balance, contrast etc. An example of this is in frame 9 in the film 'The Black Hole' it uses a colour overlay of a shade of blue, this sets a dark monotone atmosphere conveying the idea that the man is doing something he shouldn't. Another example of this in my 9 frame sequence is in the film 'Lovefield', in frame 2 the films colour balance is very low in saturation which strips a lot of vibrancy and colour from the film, this in turn creates an eerie effect, almost in a horror format. However when the original perception of what the audience believe is a man killing someone is over come and we find out the character is actually helping delivering someone baby the saturation levels increase, conveying a happy, inspirational ending.

Does our media product use, develop or challenge 
forms and conventions of real media products?

1. Editing/Post production - At the beginning of our short film we created a little transition 'Home' title, we kept it simple in order to not give too much away, keeping the whole suspending 'enigma' theme in tact. 
2. Narrative - For our short film we used real media product conventions in the form of a simple narrative, this was a convention found in a lot of other short films which i researched. We thought we would go with this convention to follow suit with other successful short films, I have found that short films with simple narrative are usually the best and most effective. We kept the narrative linear so it starts with the equilibrium and finishes with the resolution in terms of the theory of Todorov. We found this technique to keep the audience engaged because they would want to find out what the resolution is.
3. Camerawork - We used forms and conventions of many short films through the camerawork, in our film we got up close and personal with the camera shots to not only make it look more professional but mainly to build a relationship between both the characters and the audience. If the camera is closer it is easier to distinguish the characters facial expression and body language which displays emotion. As you can see in frame 3 we did not just do it with the characters, here we used a close up of the exhaust of the car which then drove off conveying an idea of urgency, furthermore camera shots like this really made our short film more creative and exciting. Taking into account the other elements of  camerawork, we used a range of angles for different effects on the audience, an example of this was using a high angle MS on the antagonist to convey people looking down on him, that maybe he's a disrespected man. 
4. Genre Conventions - Like Real media products, the genre conventions which I researched and inspired me were related to the relation between the characters and the audience, the atmosphere and self reflection gave off to the audience in the distinguished genre of 'Drama'. This is the genre which I found was the most common in short film, as a result we adapted this and implemented it into our film. The roles of which both characters play can provide a notorious link with the audience. On the other hand we do have a sub-genre, this would be suspense, especially towards the end where the shot pace has built up and the resolution is approaching. This was another convention we used to attract and keep the audience engaged throughout. 
5. Sound - Similar to the real media products that inspired me, we too kept the diegetic sound to a minimal meanwhile focusing on the non-diegetic sound, this convention worked perfectly for our film as it suiting the storyline. We thought it would make the film more intense and mysterious if there was little to none diegetic sound, as a result the only diegetic sound in our film is the sound of the car, radio, typing and then the antagonist at the end revealing the resolution. Like the short film 'memories' we used a non-diegetic soundtrack to build tension and atmosphere. 
6. Mise en scene - We challenged real media products forms and conventions of mise en scene by using a range of locations, there is a lot of travelling and a split between two characters in different locations managed without audience confusion. Although we have a few more locations then the average short film, a few were not as significant so we did not play on it, we tried not to establish the location in the scene it wasn't important so the audience would not be questioning 'where the character is now'. When you consider the costuming, the female character appears very well dressed, almost upper class. Whereas the male character is dressed scruffy (black hoodie, black jeans, trainers), implying a more working class representation, as a result this works as a technique to separate the relation between the two characters. 
7. Characterisation - In terms of characterisation we used the conventions of real media products by not going into to much depth with the characters lives, we provided the right amount of information to be displayed for the audience to get a nice basis for the film to be convincing and to still build a relationship between the audience and the character. From the use of mise en scene, the audience can gather that the female character works in an office, she's obviously left her ring at home. For the male we did not want to give too much away so it would ruin the story so he is almost an unknown character, all that is given away through the first half is that he is trying to get into a house. Similar to the film 'Lovefield' i believe the real relationship between the audience and the characters occurs at the end when the audience find out about the two characters relation with each other. We used a modern representation of both characters to ensure it reaches out to our target audience so they can relate to the characters. 
8. Themes and issues - We challenged conventions of real media products that inspired me by not focusing on a particular issue of such as there isn't a real issue highlighted in the film. However you could say that the issue is with how the audience perceive our antagonist, he is portrayed to be a burglar when in fact he turns out to be the protagonists husband and he has actually lost his keys. The issue of judging a book by it's cover is almost taught to the audience through misconception. 

Ancillary Tasks

Here are the analyses of film posters which i completed, observing the conventions and techniques used.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO 

Berberian Sound Studio is a 2012 British Independent film which had 8 Nominations and 4 wins including Best Achievement in Production & Best Actor. 

It is Directed and written by Peter Strickland, as well as starring Toby Jones. 

• The poster has a slogan underneath the Main Title "A NEW WORLD OF SOUND AWAITS YOU", this connotes an idea that the film is about 'Sound', there is a change of events and something bad happens to do with a new sound? This slogan is really indirect and a great device as it makes the audience question it. 
• "A FILM BY PETER STRICKLAND" is displayed above the title to notify an Peter Strickland fans that this is his film. A device used to advertise the film through his fan-base. 
• On the right of the poster is the festivals that it as selected for in terms of film 2012, this is done in white on black to to help it stand out. 
• The actors names appear on the poster, the majority of which are in the credit block, however the main character "Toby Jones" is places just above this is a larger font.
• At the bottom is the films social pages as well as the films website, followed by the films distribution company 'Artificial Eye'.
• The title is obviously the largest text on the page in order for this to be the first thing that the audience reads when they first look at it, the font for this title is slightly slanted, connoting that this film is a 'crooked' journey. 

Genre

• The Genre for this particular British Independent film is Horror, this is portrayed through the poster by the colours, black and red are typically used to create a dark eerie visual look as well as implementing fear, the dark background which shadows around the characters on the poster could connote a dark theme for the film. Also the imagery is used in a very symbolic way, the closeup of a very serious man is almost without emotions as if he is portrayed to be a cold hearted man and appears to be splitting in half with of what it seems to be a females head who is looking very worried almost to indicate something dangerous and fearful has happened to hear. "Nightmarish" as quoted from the review from the Empire magazine review in the top right of the newspaper which shows that this film is what you would imagine in your nightmares. 

Representation

• In terms of representation i believe they have left a lot to the imagination as the images are closeup of the characters, as a result this does not give away much Mis en scene of which i would usually use to connote an idea. However from what is being displayed on the poster it seems that the man represents a more upper class background as he seems to have a suit, white shirt and tie maybe indicating he has a higher power job.
• Being a horror and the male character being the main, it is quite easy to form the conception that the male character or character's dominate the film in terms of gender. 

Audience 

• Overall the main audience that this film is aimed at are fans of horror movies, I would say a more mature audience type due to the review type at the top of the poster, one from the Empire Magazine & one from the Telegraph newspaper. Both these newspaper and magazine are more aimed at knowledge and they go more in depth into the news story's, as a result meaning more well educated upper class citizens is the target audience. 

Media Language

• The use of lighting in this poster produces a very dark, dramatic atmosphere towards the film. The black background provides an element of unknown, this mixed with the shadowing on the male characters head connotes an illusion that he is fading into the darkness or he is a dark, mysterious man who is hiding something. 
• Facial expression plays a vital part in this poster, the contrast of his very serious face with the very terrified look on the females breaking through creates mixed emotions. Almost indicating that these to have some sort of meeting point or relationship in the movie, the female probably being the victim.

CLEANSKIN

Cleanskin is a British Thriller set in London about a secret service agent who has been assigned a task to eliminate a british born terrorist. (2012)

I have picked this film because like our short film we are producing, it is a thriller, so it would be good to analyse the techniques used. 

• The poster has a tagline "FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE" this is in red font to indicate danger and violence, in terms of meaning it provides an understanding that in order to fight against something you must fight it with the same thing, in this instance murder. 
• A release date has been included to provide the date it is out at the cinema, you will find a lot of posters do not have the exact date if they are really big mainstream films because they have to be released at different time worldwide, however in this circumstance this is a british film so this is the time it came out in the UK. The font is red also to stand out and to match the colour scheme. 
• "Sean Bean" the main actors name who is displayed on the poster is in relatively large font just below the shoulder causing an almost white on black appearance to stand out, this shows people who do not know who he is an indication that's him. As for the other actors, they are positioned in the content block at the bottom along with the production company, distribution company and all the main people who were involved in the film. 
• Just below the big caption of "Sean Bean" is a title saying "A film by Hadi Hajaig" which is reaching out to any audience who are fans of some of his work in the past who may be interested in seeing some more material from this director. 
• Along the bottom of the poster there is a Facebook name for anyone who wants to like the page on there (a device used to spread the word) along with the Warner Bros. Production company logo in the corner.
• The main images works really well with the background, the imagery blended into the mans torso could indicate that this crime which is going on is 'burning him inside' (explosion/destruction and murder) which is merged with a dark jacket, this then contrasts to a very bright almost cloudy background meaning that there is a brighter future ahead, 
• All the text is perfectly in line which makes the poster look very formal and professional, the text is very direct and in a centre alignment.

Genre

• The Genre for this film is thriller, this is determined through colouring, imagery and text. The colouring consists mainly of whites, black and reds indicating that all though there is normality, along the way there is violent events. The Main image is a seriously expressed man on his own with a gun in his hand, again linking with the genre of a thriller, an event is occurring within the blended imagery of the mans torso showing an exciting event of which seems to be an act of murder. The slogan "FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE" expresses a vey action orientated film almost indicating a missionary based theme.

Representation 

• From this poster i can see that this film is representing an upper class secret agent through the use of props (gun) and the costuming (leather gloves, smart black trousers, expensive jacket & scarf) also representing city London through the use of the stereotypical buildings we as the audience generally associate with London on the poster.

Audience

• From this poster you can determine that this film is aimed at the more male adult market, you can derive this from the poster as it is clear it had a lot of violence in it (man shooting another in the image) which would not be suitable for the younger generation as well as a more complex crime/thriller storyline through the formal layout and the imagery used. Furthermore is also has an audience for any fans of the crime/thriller genre, the director and/or the main actor Sean bean. 

Media Language

• Using a long shot for the main image of Sean Bean gives us a full frontal view of the kind of character he is (agent), displays him as the main character, shows he is going after someone or something. It also leave much to the imagination as we don't know if he is playing the good or the bad guy. 
• The prop in this post being the gun plays a vital part in this poster, this provide the audience with the information that he is involved in some sort of crime, he looks like he can use it, it seems to be silenced which means he is going to kill someone but doesn't want to get caught? 
• In terms of clothing he seems very well dressed, formal yet intimidating. In all black to conclude he may be on a dark journey or he does his business in the dark so he may not want to be seen. 
• The characters body language is very calm, he is comfortable with the gun in his hand, almost as if he has done it before. In terms of facial expression he seems very calm also, slightly serious and determined to finish business. 

Does our poster use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is the Poster for our groups short film, using Adobe Photoshop we have developed this poster to achieve a successful, eye catching, independent film poster. Each member of my group created 1 or 2 of these drafts and then as a group we decided that this one we like best, this was good idea to do as not only did it give us more options but we could also pull parts we all like from each of ours posters and form one with many attributes.

( Above, Screen shot of making of the original poster in photoshop)

• For this poster we chose a dark theme because our short film is of the drama suspense genre and after research into other thrillers posters i discovered the majority of them are based with a very dark and eerie theme to them, another reason why i chose this black coloured theme is because our short film is set in the evening. 
• In terms of imagery, we took the images of both characters starring in the short film from using a digital high quality camera making sure in terms of mise en scene that both characters are wearing the right costuming, furthermore the facial expression had to be appropriate in relation to the short films plot, the male having a very serious, almost angered expression whereas the female being serious yet concerned look. Also we took a digital photo of the house we used in the film which created a relation between the characters and the house. I blended both images of the characters and house into the dark background using various colour adjustment and blending tools to give the poster a more dynamic, professional appearance that is similar to the mise en scene conventions of real media products.
• The title 'HOME' is very bold and eye catching which was my intentions so the movie title is identified easily, white on blank is used as well as large font compared to the other font on the page to ensure this is read first. I chose a very original, simple font type as in my opinion these appear very well, you cannot go wrong as they are easy to read and you see too many people and independent companies try to elaborate and create an amazingly detailed title which is hard to understand and doesn't really suit the film. 
• The Actors names are titled at the top of the page in relatively large font to ensure audiences who view the poster notice the 2 main characters in the film which as a result (if a fan) may cause them to view the film, I used a white font colour for this for the surname and a darker grey for the first name as I generally like this appearance.
• The credit block is located at the bottom of the page aligned centre to ensure a neat and tidy layout, this was a downloaded template in the font and format of a professional credit block, I then changed the content so it suited our film. We used BBC Films and the UK Film Council as our promotors as this suits our short film this is because they are independent organisations which are more likely to be involved with our films then the likes Warner bros. because it is an independent British film which would not be produced by a high budget American company. 
• In terms of reviews & ratings, there is a 4* rating by Empire magazine as this is a British film magazine company which suits the films background so it is a realistic benchmark of rating, furthermore i have added a clip-it of a review from the newspaper 'The independent' claiming the film is 'dramatic... astonishing twist, simply a marvel.' which is there too give an idea of what the professional review company's thought of the film which boosts recognition and views. Using the independent (a British newspaper company) is there to employ that this film may be for the older generation, people who are quite knowledgeable, an educated audience. 

Review

Little White Lies is a British Independent movie magazine releasing issues bi-monthly whose first issue was released in 2005. It is published by The Church of London who is an agency in London specializing in creativity who also publish a few others.
Little White Lies is widely recognized for its very creative, illustration designed magazine which per issue has a feature-film assigned which in turn is the cover page (usually of a main characters head from the film), this inspires the design and editorial content throughout the issue.

A study into the readers was conducted in 2008, these were the results:

Conventions of Layout

- A large coloured image taken from the film

- Image does not go to the edge of the paper (Top & Side)

- Corners of image are square

- Dimensions are 168mm x 70mm

- Title of film

- Font type: Century Gothic, Size 30, Bold – Lower Case

- Centred alignment

- 3 piece of key information –

-Who directs the film

-Who the film is starring

-When the film is released

- Font type: Aparajita, size 11, mixed lower/upper case, Italic/normal & and bold/normal

- Release date never has the ‘th’ or ‘rd’ after the number

- Large capital letter to start the review

- Usually the same Font type, size & style as Title

- Main review text is split into 3 columns

- Text justified both to the left & right

- Article is around the 540-word mark, if fewer words the image is enlarged

- Paragraph usage usually around 6, in this case 7

- Font type: Aparajita size 11

- All films reviewed in this magazine given an Anticipation, Enjoyment & In Retrospect rating and write up

- An accurate dividing line is in place between each section

- Mix of font size, italics/normal & bold/normal

- Rating numbers are in font type Century Gothic, bold

- Rating number aligned to the right of write up

Does our review use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For our review we used the forms and conventions of the Little White Lies magazine, we researched and analysed reviews from the magazine and noted the forms and conventions then applied this to our own film review. We didn't develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products as it had to be in the same format and house style. 

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

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For our short film and poster our target audience demographic was males age 15-40 years old, whereas our audience for the review was males 25-35 years olds, as a result I conducted some time out to retrieve some feedback from people. Here are my Findings:

Film

This is the feedback which i got back when i put our film on the social networking site Facebook, the feedback was generally quite impressive, the only things which were said in terms of what they didn't like or what we could have improved on was 'I do think it would of been better in the evening though.', I agree on this one as we originally were going to film in the evening however getting everyone together at the location at that time was difficult. Another thing said in the feed that we could improve on was 'you probably should of used slightly more believable actors as i don't think you two would own a house like that or be married together at this age' although i do agree with this point, it would of been very hard to organise someone older as they probably would have work all the time. Other than that the feedback was really good for our short film, Charlotte Atkins stated 'Loved the exhaust shot as she drove away'. 

Poster

I asked people in a little survey that i conducted, does this poster make you want to see the film? I asked 7 people all together who were males between 17 and 30 which is within our target audience of which 6 said 'yes' they would want to view the film from seeing the poster, whereas only 1 said 'no' they wouldn't want to view the film after seeing the poster, the reason for this 'no' was because the person was not a fan of the genre thriller which they gathered was the genre of our film due to the conventions of our poster (The dark mise en scene creating a tense, eerie effect). I also received another item of feedback from when i presented it on the social networking site 'Twitter', Ryan Collin, 17 claimed it 'looks really professional' and couldn't really think of a way to  From this I learnt although our poster is very good and advertises our film well, it does however make the film appear too dark as if it has a lot of action in it, which i can see where he's coming from. If I was to go back and alter the poster according to the feedback I would consider changing the background colour as I think people could get the wrong genre idea from our current one. 


Review

For the film review I found it hard to get audience feedback which was in the Little White Lies target audience of 25-35, however I managed to get a friend on Facebook who is within this age group to give me some feedback. He was full of compliments such as 'You have done well to achieve a similar writing format as their artistic, creative style of writing!!!'. His basic summary was that it was a great effort at a Little White Lies review, he did leave one criticism though, 'you may have given too much away in the review...' , from this I have learnt that although we may have given away a bit too much, it is a short film which makes it quite hard not too. Little White Lies generally do film reviews for big Hollywood movies which last around 2 hours, so it is easier to just do a brief review of their favourite or not so favourite parts of the film. However because ours is a short film it is around 5 minutes long which is considerably harder to write. 














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