The use of Media Technology in my Evaluation Stage

Now that I have completed my evaluation stage I can look at the media technology I used. This is a continuation of the previous media technology post.

Throughout my evaluation I used a range of different programmes to ensure that I am using my blog to its full potential. For my "In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?" post I used a website called slideshare. This allowed me to create a powerpoint presentation including links which will still work when uploaded to my blog. This makes my evaluation much more interactive for the user.

Youtube has proved very useful as it has allowed me to provide links in my work to help justify my point much more effectively. It also breaks up any writing and prevents it from being simply blocks of text. As well as this I have also used a lot of hyperlinks during my whole evaluation. This is to provide more information and detail and redirect the reader to relevant information.

There are also some very simple programmes I have used throughout my evaluation for example the use of paint to enable me to print screen and import relevant pictures. Also Microsoft powerpoint to make a much more interactive post which can then be imported into slide share.

The use of Media Technology in my Production Stage

When actually filming our final project we used digital cameras, these made it very easy to go back and watch a clip that we had already filmed to get an idea of whether or not we need to refilm. However as a result of using a tape to record rather than an SD card it was much more difficult to film over unwanted footage rather than simply deleting it.

During our editing stage we used Final cut pro and also iMovie. Although at the beginning stages we had problems working out how to make specific changes we made good use out of Youtube to research and learn new editing skill such as our slow motion effect.

When it came to creating our ancillary tasks we got a lot of use our of Photoshop CS5, this enabled us to create a lot of high quality edits and changes. For example in our poster we made a lot of changes to the background picture, for example we changed the brightness to allow the characters to stand out a lot more. Without photoshop we would have been able to achieve the results we did and to allow us to create a set of ancillary tasks relevant to our main project.

The use of Media Technology in my Pre Production Stage

For our A2 major project we chose to create a 5 minute short film. We came to this decision as we believed it would be the task that would allow us to be the most creative whilst also having enough tasks to work well as a team. Throughout the whole of the pre production stage we got a lot of use out of the internet. This was essential when it came to looking at existing short films, we used websites such youtube, bbc film network and LG short film. Looking at existing short films enabled us to be able to get an idea of the codes and conventions that were essential for us to follow. Having the technology to look online made the whole process a lot quicker and enabled us to look at a lot more examples. This was definitely helpful when it came to our final influence of the short film 'Now', this turned out to be the most helpful bit of research we carried out.

Using google docs allowed us to send out questionnaires to our target audience and gain organised feedback. It turned out much quicker and more effective than conducting it in paper form as we didn't then need to convert all the information onto the Internet. Using Google Docs also allowed us to send our questionnaire out to our target audience and target our specific audience. We then left our questionnaire online for two weeks and set a deadline as to when we would go back and collect the answers.

To ensure that I was keeping to deadlines and handing in work on time I used TomsPlanner to create a time plan. This proved extremely useful as it included all of our important deadlines and meant we could plan our filming around it. Without TomsPlanner I would have probably drew one out on paper, although at the start this would have been just as effective once it came to making slight changes it would have meant completely redoing the whole plan. This website was yet again another advantage of web 2.0.

Scribd and Flickr enabled me to make my blog much more interesting than it would be with blocks of texts or just lists of pictures. It also enabled me to scan in any work I had written on paper such as story boarding and brainstorming and present it electronically. These two websites also proved useful when it came to presenting research such as costume plans, locations shoots, and a lot of text information.

Once I carried out all my basic research we began to test shoot some of the shots we were looking to use. I am going to provide a hyperlink for a Label rather than a single post as it contains all our test shoots and analysis.

During this stage we used a lot of scribd to present our shot analysis and most importantly we used Imovie, and Final Cut as our editing software. Final cut is a lot more advanced than Imovie so allowed me to develop my editing skills ready for when it comes to editing the final piece.

Overall I believe that Media technology has definitely allowed me to produce a working blog. It also allowed me to present my work in a much more interesting way without just posting posts with just block text in. I will evaluate my

I will evaluate the use of media technology in my evaluation once I have finished all the other stages of evaluation.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Throughout my whole A2 project I have definitely realised the importance of audience feedback. I feel this year that I have used my target audience to create a much more effective piece of work.

Having the use of Web 2.0 has improved my questionnaire techniques dramatically, I used google docs to enable me to send my questionnaire out via the facebook and blogger group. I have evaluated google docs as a programme itself in my "The use of media technology in the pre- production stage" post. As well as using google docs I also received feedback from facebook and youtube as we allowed our viewers to comment on the video and ancillary tasks.

Our target audience is based mainly around the ages of 16-20, choosing this age group allowed us to publish our questionnaire on Facebook and our Blogger page. Millions of people all over the world use facebook and the majority of people in this age range would have a wide knowledge of the internet so would find it very easy to answer our questionnaire. This proved useful as it means more people were willing to do our questionnaire as it wasn't a hard, time consuming task.

Our comments overall have been very positive and also provided us with a lot of useful feedback. We made a lot of changes throughout our project and it was here I felt the full impact of how helpful and essential audience feedback is.

We collected a lot of feedback throughout the whole process of our production, you can see how much our work has developed from this initial 'Test Filming'. We found that the audience picked up on a lot of our editing faults and the shots simply didn't follow. I have analysed this in my 'Test film Analysis' post. We found from our audience feedback that our target audience enjoyed the idea of having dream moments in our final edit, although we have made a lot of changes since this point the original concept is still included. Another major factor we changed was taking out the original dialogue, this enabled our editing to run much smoother, we also found that our target audience didn't associate any dialogue with a short film so was essential that we removed it.

Our final feedback was again collected through the use of google docs and again posted on facebook and our blogger page. By clicking onto this link you can see the questions posted to our target audience. We didn't receive as much feedback as i would have liked however it was enough to give a final conclusion to the project.

Here is a screenshot of some of the feedback:

One of the most difficult pieces of pre-production research was learning how to establish a genre into a short film, we therefore decided to focus on an emotion. As you can see from our final feedback everyone said that they felt happy and excited at the beginning but sad come the end. This gives me confidence that we have succeeded in portraying a clear and strong emotional message.

A lot of our important feedback about the short film and ancillary tasks came from a class discussion, we all had the opportunity to present our work to our teachers and classmates and then receive feedback on this. One of the most controversial points of feedback was about the ending of our short film, we had one teacher saying she liked the ending as it is as it allows the audience to make up their own mind on the ending, and the other teacher saying he found it too confusing. However after looking at all our audience feedback we collected we decided to stick to our final edit. This was mainly due to different people giving different ideas about what the whole film was about which i believe is an effective way to get people talking and discussing our project. I liked how different people decode our short film in different ways for example we had feedback of the two characters being ex-friends, in a relationship and even the extreme opinion of the girl in fact now being dead. All these different opinions is in fact exactly the response we were looking for as people are now talking about our work.

Looking back at both projects over the last 2 years I have realised the importance of audience feedback after each major decision.

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

I believe that our main project and ancillary tasks follow on as well as they possibly can. The poster and our main short film are quite closely related however the film review doesn't have much relation to my other products.

To ensure that our tasks are all linked and branded together we had to understand clearly the importance of genre in a short film. I believe that Short Films tend to have their own genre and this wont necessarily be easy to establish straight away. To ensure that we created a successful short film it was essential that we followed some of the main conventions, also mentioned in this link. some of them being; a clear story line, and including no dialogue. These were our first steps to creating the genre which we then had to apply to our film poster and review.

The poster is based mainly around the two characters within the short film. We produced a fairly simple poster as we had to follow the conventions of independent film companies. Our short film is conveying happiness and excitement along with also a bit of confusion due to allowing the audience to make up their mind on what to make of the ending. We tried to convey this on our poster by keeping the two characters in a fairly simple environment. In our short film its the boy that misses out on his chance with the girl so on the poster we had the girl looking at the camera and the boy looking over his shoulder towards the girl. This automatically shows that there is some kind of relationship between the two. We were aware all along that Short Films don't tend to have a specific genre as short films are a complex genre within itself. Therefore in order to create a successful poster we had to simplify this complex genre. We therefore decided to focus more on the romantic side of our short film and convey this in our poster. These conventions involve, having a barrier (physical or imaginary) between the two characters, keeping the characters in a fairly simple environment, presenting the name of the short film in big, bold, clear text, the colour scheme e.g white is often used, the way the characters are positions convey the relationship, there isn't anything else on the poster except for the characters.

We included some reviews onto our poster which we claimed to have been taking from "short Reviews" this is in fact the film review that we created. Although the film review isn't directly related to the poster it does have pictures from our short film. I personally believe that you cant directly relate the the film review to one poster or short film as this will make it look unrealistic and unprofessional. However both follow the same colour scheme of black, white and red and also all include our logo of "walking frame productions". Although I believe we wouldn't directly influence an film review if we were to carry out a press release about the short film we would emphasise aspects of our theme.

Throughout the ancillary stage our main focus was creating a product that looks like it has been produced in the real media world. I believe that both of the designs look very professional and look as if they could represent a professionally produced short film.

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

Evaluation media

View more presentations from Charley Millard.

target audience questionnaire info

We used google docs to create a questionnaire and then posted it onto our facebook page and our blogger group. We are now awaiting for people to reply.

target audience questionnaire

Evaluation Planning

Audience feedback - questionnaire to post of blog and facebook
- Video of people analysing our work, they then fill out questionnaire

Answer these questions with help of audience feedback and rest of project

• In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge the codes and conventions of real media products?
  
• How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
• What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
• How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages of your project? - facebook, google docs, web 2.0, storyboarding in scribd, research on youtube. (how did this help us?)
• Pre Production
• Production
• Evaluation

Moment

This is our final version of our short film, again i will evaluate this properly when it comes to my final detailed evaluation.

Film Poster

This is our final film poster as part of our ancillary task. We ensured that the name was big and bold as this is the most convential way to advertise an idependent or short film. I will be analysing this more in my evaluation.

Film Review

After looking at some excisting film reviews this is the final design we come up with. We based it in photoshop as this seemed to be the most appropriate software to use. We got our main insparation from the magazine "Film and Sound", for example the bigger letters at the start of the paragraphs and also the idea of the name going down the sides. The black and red theme was influenced mainly by the online magazine called "empire online".

Copy Right letter

Dear Copyright Holder

I am an A level student and I am writing this letter to ask for permission to use a song for my short film which I will be creating for my practical work in media studies. The song that I will be using is bubbly by Colbie Caillat.

If I am able to gain your permission to use this track in my project I can assure you that it will only be shown to my media class, my teachers and the examination board. After my project is complete it will not be released to large audiences and will not be placed onto any short film websites for people to watch.

Yours Faithfully, Charley Millard and George Mattock

Ancillary task poster review write up

Split Differences

Plot: A five minute short film showing the emotion and struggles going through two young peoples minds as they pass in the street.
When to random people meet pass in the street it is there minds that are running wild with thoughts and confusion. It is unknown to the characters what could unravel in their lives if only they stopped and exchanged words.

Review: It can so easy to forget the impact a five minute short film can have on its audience. Split Differences draws the audience in by allowing the audience to relate to the characters on screen. This short film is upbeat and defiantly one to recommend if you’re after watching something happy go lucky.
The two actors George Mattock and Charley Millard have done a fantastic job of conveying the emotion of the characters
Overall I rate this short film a definite 4/5 Stars!

Shelf Life

Plot: Shelf life is a humorous short film that builds up the mans activities to finish with a unique ending. Who knew putting up a shelf could be so much hassle?

Review: This short film is very short and simple but extremely effective. With the shots focusing on what seems to be a man on a mission it draws the audience in to find out what he could possibly be doing!? The ending of this short film is especially effective and again I rate this a fantastic 4/5 stars!

Ancillary Drafts

We have created a set of very basic ancillary task drafts. We will be using these as a basic template to work on for our film review and poster. At this stage they are very basic but show our initial idea.

Location shoot

We carried out a location shoot to ensure that we know where we are filming and the type of factors we will have to take into account. This will enable us to plan around our environment and also what equipment to take.

Shooting Plan

To ensure that all of our filming runs smoothly and we are meeting deadlines we have produced a shooting schedule.

Day 1

Our first day of final filming will be carried out on Friday 11th February. Here we will carry out the majority of our major shots. We will also be using this day to edit this footage and go out andre-film if necessary. We will be carrying out our filming at the bottom of our school field. This will mean its easy enough to go back and re film is needed after using the schools equipment to edit our footage. We will most likely have to return to this location at some point to re film some of the shots however we can look at this at a later date.

Day 2

We will be carrying out our second day of filming will be carried out on Friday 18th February. It will be essential that this piece of filming goes as well as possible as this will be located in weston supermare. This therefore means around a 40 minute drive which wont be as simple to go back and re film if necessary. Here we are showing the relationship that could unravel between the two characters so its important that we carry out the right kind of shots and mis en scene.

Day 3

Costume Plan

We carried out an costume plan to ensure that we represent our characters in the correct way. It will also allow us to ensure our actors are wearing the same clothing if re-filming is needed.

Shot analysis

I analyzed our initial footage so that we could work on improving this.shot analysis

Production Practice

This is our first test filming session after analysis the short film now. Although weve found that a lot of our shots dont flow as well as we would like it is a good basis to go on.

Short Film Now

We have looked into the short film now. It was produced in Germany but puts across a very strong and clear message which we would like to follow on to. As you can see it has been produced in a very simple setting using simply natural light. Also the sound used is heard by both the user and the actors but only the male through his headphones. The use of close ups show the emotion of the characters and the chemistry between the two characters. The camera shots have used very creative techniques in order to show the relationship between the characters without the use if dialogue. The picture scene within the short film is very simple yet effective as it gives a clear understanding that these are the events that could unravel in their lives.

Basic Ancillary task research

Ancillary Tasks Research
We carried out some basic acillary task research so that when it comes to creating our Poster and film review we have a basic idea of forms and conventions to follow.

Planning the picture scene

In our final production we will have a still shots present in our film, the still shots show the emotion and thoughts of both the boy and the girl. So we know what to take pictures of we have produced a plan to show what still images will relate to each of our actors.

For the Male part of the still shots we will show
-Walking in the park
-Sittin on a bench
-Argument in the lounge
-Eating fish and chips at the beach

For the Female part of the still shots we will show
-Super market shopping
-In the sea paddling
-Drawing a heart in the sand
-Eating candy-floss and ice cream in face.

we believe that these shots typically represent a couple in a relationship and the thought that would be apparent in their mind when thinking about each other and their life together.

Role allication

When it comes to allocation roles for our A2 coursework we both have decided to take individual roles, we feel that if we split all of our task up then we have a better change of producing something of better quality as we each have individual strengths.

For the Main production
George Mattock
-Location shoots
-Editing
-Producing
-Mis en scene

Charley Millard
-Costumes
-Sound
-Camera
-Director

For our Ancillary Task
George Mattock
-Graphics and for both the poster and the film review
-Photoshop for the images

Charley Millard
-Photography for the poster and film review
-writing up the film review

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

To ensure that we don't come across any dangerous circumstances during our filming we carried out a Risk Assessment. This is to ensure that we are prepared for any situation and will know how to handle it correctly.

Deadlines

I must complete these before the 18th of Feb!!

location Shoots
Costume Plans
Shoot schedules
Risk Assessments
Research Ancillary Tasks
Drafting For Ancillary Tasks
Branding Three Products

Teacher Feedback:
Evidence of a lot of in depth research but need to have evidence of
1) Up to date location shoot
2) Costume Ideas
3) Up to date shoot schedules
4) Risk Assessment

Hand in dates from now onwards

I have produced a time plan of my hand in dates from now to the final hand in date so that i can ensure that my work is on track. I have used exclamation marks to make clear when my final deadline is.

Question 1B - Narrative

"Media texts rely on culteral experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives". Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

How useful is the concept of narrative in understanding your work?
As our AS project was a film opening there wasnt much time to create much of a narative however it is obvious that we need a narative to get our heads round what is going on. one of the most relevent theorys to a film is Todorovs theory stating that every films follows 3 steps; Equilibrium, conflict, new equilibrium. Due to us only creating a film opening we didnt achieve all three steps however if we had gone on to produce a full blockbuster film we would have backed up this thoery. Throughout the pre-production planning we were constantly looking at previous film openings which subconsciously gives us an idea of the type of narrative to use for our filming. This was essential for ensureing that the audience completly understood what our opening was supporting and also makes the aundience want to ask questions.
Barthes: decided that they could be categorised in the following five ways:･Action/proiarectic
code & enigma code (ie Answers & questions)･Symbols & Signs･Points of Cultural Reference
Simple description/reproductio. The conventions we followed within our thoery such as mis-en-scene and camera shots and angles would allow the opening to create enigmas for the audience.

How is narrative and music videos different to narrative and film?
Telling a story in a music video is completly different to doin it in a film, this is because you have much longer for the audience to adjust to the film settings whereas a music video has to be expressed simply by the song and mis-en-scene used. Andrew Godwin quotes;
‘Music Videos are simply an extension of the lyrics; Images add new layers of meaning to the words of the song.’ I believe that this is a very good description of music videos as a music artist has to express what it is trying to show via mis-en-scene nd the actors. However in a film there is much longer for the audience to get to know the characters and create there own opinions of the story line. Todorovs theory states the a film starts in equilibruim, has a moment of conflict and is then transformed into a new equilibrium. In our short film we have to include a mixture of both these theorys, although a short films has very little to do with a music video it must also introduce the characters quickly and get straight to the point. I believe that short films also follow todorovs theory because they always have a conflict in the middle of the short film and it is then solved by the end of the film.

Genre Theory Questions

"Medis texts rely on audience knowledge of generic codes and conventions in order for them to create meaning." Explain how you have used your subverted generic conventions in one of your production pieces.

How usefull is the concept of genre in understanding in your work?
I believe that it is essential to have a clear idea of the genre your trying to accomplish no later than after the early planning stages of the prduction. This is because if there is no clear genre the audience will become confused and wont be able to understand how to take in what they are watching. Without being able to understand the power of genre it is almost impossible to use it to its full potential. Genre was particularly usefull towards our work as it allowed us to establish specific conventions, this is backed up by Richard Maltbys theory that states "The success of Hollywood is relient on the combination of predictable elements with variation." This theory is proved when we think about the most popular hollywood blockbusters. However this is contradicted when Rick Altmans theory says that theory makes "viewers become passive voyeurs" and "Genres are therefore restrictive". So this could show that genre only has a negative effect on a film and restricts the audience to be creative within their own imagination. However genre isnt only based on the conventions used as Edward Buscombe quotes that he "Felt that iconography was the best way to achieve generic definitions" This means that although conventions are the main way to establish a genre is a known actor has been in only horror films then when you see the actor in a film you will automatically assume that its a horror film.

How is your production conventional to the genre?
For our AS practical production we focused on the horror genre, we researched all the conventions by looking at past exampes, this proved very usefull as it means that we understood how to address the audience very well. We looked at excisting film openings as Richard Maltby states that "The success of Hollywood is relient on the combination of predictable elements with variation." If this genre theory is correct then it is essential that we followed the basic conventions of a horror opening. The most usefull conventions we applied to our project was to include the use of blood, sharp objects which we ensure we followed. The backing track we used was also just as important as that sets the mood for the audience. which also backs up Maltbys theory. However we didnt follow all of the conventions as this would make our opening have no variety at all. John Fiske States that "Any one programme will bear the main characteristic of its genre, but is likely to include some from others ascribing it to one genre or another. It also involves deciding which set of characteristics are most important." So therefore this theory proves that its not essential to follow every convention spot on as this will prevent and imagination for the producers.