EVALUATION

How are you using media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating strategies?

Media technologies have been a constant and the most dominant part of my media production work. I have used many different programs for different elements of my work and I couldn't have possibly finished without them.

When I decided that the genre for my short film will be horror, I was quite happy with my choice, as I already knew quite a bit about it. Being a horror film fanatic, I had already watched many, so I knew what to expect. For my research and planning, firstly I had used the DVDs I already had at my house. I watched the horror films on a Playstation, which was easy and quick to do. Using some DVDs I already had was a good idea as it allowed me to re-watch the scenes that caught my attention and I could pause to annotate, too. After watching the films I had, I decided that I needed to expand my range a little, and so I had to use different types of video streaming websites in order to look up videos that I could use as examples for my own work. My main online source had been YouTube, where I watched different openings to horror films, after I had decided that my short film would be an opening sequence. Using YouTube had proven to be a good idea, as it has a lot of material, and most of all, is free, allowing me to watch anything I wanted. YouTube is a quick and easy website to use, also allowing me to annotate the film and even take screen caps if needed. That’s all for my main task. For the ancillary tasks, which were a movie poster and a film review page, I just used Google to look up some images of already existing material and took notes on them.

For my planning, I mainly just used a camera to take pictures for my storyboard, and since I didn’t have an actual camera, I just used my phone, which ended up working perfectly well, since the resolution on it is pretty good, and it was much quicker and easier to do than working with a camera would be. After taking all my pictures, I had to upload them onto my computer and put them all together into a storyboard, which was a PowerPoint presentation, which was also quick and quite efficient, as it didn’t take a lot of time and was simple to make.

After all the planning was done, the actual shooting had to take place, but the only thing used for that was a camera which we rented out from college. The microphone was already installed in the device and the only other thing we used was a tripod.

The post-production part was the one that took the most time and effort. The main software used for this was Adobe Premiere Pro, which was what we used to edit the whole video. At first, my partner and I weren’t sure how to use this program as neither of us knew it, but we quickly figured out its strengths and used them to the best of our abilities. To complete our film, we also had to use other sources from the internet, such as www.dafont.com, to get fonts for our production name and the title of our film, as well as using Google to find an image that we could use as the logo for our production. These ways proved to be very useful as both sites are free, quick and easy to use, making the task pleasant. To edit our production name and the title of our film so that it would look good in the video, we used Photoshop to crop out the background of the text, then placing it in the video. Photoshop is a software that we’re both familiar with as we already had to use it last year, and also for the ancillary tasks this year.

The ancillary tasks themselves didn’t involve too many media technologies. The only things used were a camera to take the necessary pictures for the film poster and review page, as well as Photoshop in order to edit the images and add any text that was needed in order to make the tasks seem as professional as possible. Google was once again used here in order to find an ‘18’ sticker for my film poster and looking up examples of professional film posters and film reviews to take some ideas from them.

For the evaluation, I am using Microsoft Word to write it all out, and www.blogger.com to upload it onto. I’m also using the print screen function of my keyboard to take pictures of things I may need to include in this. Blogger is a very easy website to use, allowing quick uploads and possibly instant feedback.

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

For this whole project, I had to do three tasks; the main task (a short film) and two ancillary tasks (a film poster and a film review page).

The main task, which is an opening sequence to a horror film, is firmly based on the movie Scream. I had decided to do a re-make of the opening sequence of that film, since it’s one of my favourites. I knew that doing a re-make of a film can be dangerous, as it can end up looking too much like the original, but I had a few good ideas on how to change it for it to look more modern, at the same time keeping the same plotline and the main story.

My media product doesn’t challenge any forms and conventions of real media products. Whatever films I have researched for this (Scream, The Strangers, etc,) I have used the conventions from them to my advantage, only developing on them. I used the main codes and conventions for all horror films; dark settings, eerie sounds, slow paced action at the beginning, and building up on it to a dramatic climax. My film production reflects real media products in a positive way, making my film look quite professionally done. I had used the conventions which I thought were the most interesting to audiences, and ones that I knew would keep the audience interested in seeing more.

Most horror films portray the victim as a woman and the killer as a male figure. Scream does the same, and my initial thought was to change that stereotype around and have a male victim with a female serial killer. The idea seemed great to me, however I lacked a male actor willing to play the protagonist, making me stick to the original stereotype and keeping the victim a female and the killer a man figure. The female victim in my opening sequence is an innocent looking blonde woman, who once again fits perfectly into the stereotype of the female who usually gets killed off first in a horror film. The killer is a masked figure wearing a large hoody and a white mask, keeping the idea similar to the one in Scream, however changing the attire a little, keeping the look more modern and something to keep the teenage audience tuned in.

For my ancillary tasks one and two, I had also strongly based them on already existing media products, not challenging any conventions, only adopting them to my own work. For the film review page, I looked up different review pages using Google, looking at some interesting ones that stood out to me most, like a review of Avatar in the Cineworld’s Unlimited magazine, or the Empire review for Chinatown. I had used these examples to model my own work, keeping it simple and elegant, while at the same time making it look professional and kind to the eye. I chose colour themes to match the genre and general feel of my film, though keeping the main parts, such as a few lines, naming the main starts of the film, the director, the length of the film, and the rating of the review the same.

For my film poster, I used the poster for Scream 4¸as my main influence, liking that one best as it was quite simple, yet still made an impression. I also liked the poster for One Missed Call and The Silence Of The Lambs, as they were all quite dark and stood out to me most, as they look really mysterious, at the same time getting the message of the genre of the film across perfectly. All the posters portray a face partly in shadow, which is what I did in my own ancillary task two. Looking at different posters, I knew I had to include the film title, production, directors and producers names, etc, in a small print at the bottom of the poster, along with a tag indicating what age you have to be in order to watch this film.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When doing my media project, the main source of constructive criticism I had been getting, was from my subject tutor. Since I wasn’t the editor of the film, most of what has been said was directed towards my partner, as she was the one making all the changed, but I always helped decide what she should do, or how she should do something. Whenever we got a comment from our tutor or any other teacher who looked at our product, we always took the comments to heart, thinking them over and deciding what we should do.

Since the primary audience of our film was people ages 18-25, we couldn’t really get direct feedback from that very age range, but we weren’t far off, and the feedback we got from people either a little younger or a little older still suited us perfectly and we adopted whatever was being said to us. The reason we mainly used the feedback of our tutor and teachers for this task was because they knew what they were talking about, since they know the film business well. However, when we received any feedback from our peers, it was always positive.

For the ancillary tasks, I had to change quite a bit under the influence of the feedback I was getting. Overall people seemed to agree that my pieces were good ones and the feedback was positive, however when I showed them to my subject tutor, he gave me a few pieces of advice that would make them even better, making me re-draft them.

With the film review, I had originally done only one page of work, only to find out it needed to be a double page spread, making me add an additional page, which got positive feedback when I shared it with people later. The same this happened with my film poster. When showing it to my peers and people outside of my class, I got very positive feedback, with people agreeing that the poster looked very professional and smart. However, when I showed it to my subject tutor, he gave me some constructive criticism about the font at the bottom of the poster being too big and the fact that the age restriction for the movie was missing.

With the help of peers and teachers and their praise and constructive criticism, I made some crucial changes to my work that only helped to make it an even better product than I had originally hoped for. 

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

My main project and the two ancillary tasks link very well together. I have continued a certain theme through all of my projects, linking them in a way that lets the audience know they’re supposed to go together. The overall colour theme of my main task, which is mainly dark with some red lighting when the scene is taking outside, is continued in my two ancillary projects as well, with the two of them being predominately made up of only dark colours with some red, which in turn represents the blood which is to be shed in the film.

Another thing linking all my three tasks together is the simplicity of them. All of them are really simple in their design, even the film, which is very slow paced at the beginning, then getting faster when the killing takes place. The two ancillary tasks are also the simplest they could possibly be, as I’ve noticed that the genre of horror is mainly quite simple in design.

Seeing as the target audience for my film is 18-25, I’ve noticed that people in that particular age group don’t like it when things are too complicated, that’s another reason why I decided to go with the simplicity option. If the review was longer or the film poster with a more difficult message to understand, the audience would probably get bored and wouldn’t want to continue reading it, or try to figure out what the film might possibly be about. The poster and review are supposed to be attention catching and easy on the eye, and that’s exactly what I think they are, and they go perfectly with the film which is also very pleasant to watch, despite its genre.

Overall, I think that the three tasks go really well together, complimenting each other in all the right aspects.