Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Frame 1: A lot of our inspiration came from Lovefield by Mathieu Ratthe, including mise en scene and foli sounds. Lovefield leads viewers to think one thing until the very end and one method used that we included was the crow. The crow is often used in thriller and horror films as they are often associated with death and evil. Unfortunately we had neither a trained crow or very good nature skills. So we took the idea and developed it by adding non-diegetic sounds of a crow.
Frame 2: We also used Lovefields form for opening shots. Long, slow revealing shots of the setting to allow views to better understand the film.
Frame 3: A convention often used in thrillers are close ups of specific objects in a opening scene. Something both Lovefield and our film used after seeing the effectiveness of these close ups in Lovefield.
Frame 4: There were two things Lovefield did which we were really interested in doing. The unexpected twist (See frame 5) and sudden change in pace. In Lovefield a knife is suddenly plunged into the ground which is the sign for the sudden change. We developed this idea by having a hand suddenly land on a phone which is used for one of our opening shots.
Frame 5: The sudden twist in Lovefield is what really drew use to the film. It sort of adds a comedic value to the film as viewers just don't expect the ending and that's something we wanted to use and develop on in our film.
Frame 6: The short film The Black Hole uses colour effectively to effectively convey the mood of the character and we tried to use this in the end of our film after the body is discovered to try shift the mood and get the audience to really feel for our protagonist.
Frame 7: Two Cars One Night breaks the narrative of the film up by using sped up exposer shots of people moving about the parking lot. We wanted to use something similar to this for our 'cleaning up scene' and while we couldn't use exposer to create the trails of people moving like TCON we over-layed 3 shots to create a similar effect.
Frame 8: The last short film we used to help shape our film was Signs. The picture selected is actually out of a series of jump cuts used to show a lot of things in a short time. We defiantly used this convention to help us keep to our time limit and avoid audiences getting bored during the 'clean up scene' again.
Frame 9: Again, the picture here is not actually what we used to develop our film but it's the editing. The film often abruptly changes scene to shorten the film and is something used to have the same effect.
Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary task?
Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
How did we obtain our feedback?
During the whole project we have been asking friend, family and teachers for feedback. This feedback really shaped our film as we listened and made changes that our target audience thought made the film better. But how else did we gain feedback?
As social media sites grow and Facebook becomes the biggest and easiest way to talk to all your friends, it made sense for us to upload the poster, film and review onto Facebook and ask our friends for feedback. The only problem with doing this is some of the responses can be quite...rude. As well as this we also asked Family members, classmates and Ollie the technician.
Feed back for our poster
I started my section of gaining audience feedback by uploading a final version of our film poster onto Facebook and asking for feedback (In return for a cookie) so we could see what our target audience thought needed improving to make them want to see the film. We got some positive feedback with a few suggestions for tweaking such as moving text off Jordan's hands and blurring the edges of Jordan.
Feed back for our film
We then asked for feedback on our film. Again a lot of positive stuff, but the main complaint about the film was the fact that the phone says Dad on it, when in fact it's his Mum who rang. This was due to the fact that we were filming at my Dads house, so I rang the mobile from my Dads phone and didn't change his name in the phone book to 'Mum'.
But we also asked for feedback during the shooting and editing of our film. Especially with the opening shot where the logo appears. We originally had two different versions we were indecisive on so we asked our fellow class members which one they preferred, leading us to using the opening title you can see in the final film.
Conclusion: From our audience feedback we've learned to take a bit more time when setting up a shot to avoid silly little errors such as the name on the phone when it rings. We've also learned that if we really want to please our target audience we should involve them in the creating of the film to insure we get solid feedback
Question Four: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stage?
The first, second, fourth and sixth frame show characterisation very well
The first shot identifies that the protagonist feels isolated and lonely from everyone else.
The shallow depth of field helps back up this theory, as he is the only one in focus, everyone else looks as they are one group, and he is completely alone.
This protagonist looks like someone who can be trusted, as he is using the "Black Hole" to steal food and money.
He watches a couple kiss, and the look on his face after shows that he wishes he had someone to spend time with.
The third, seventh, and nineth shots so a good use of mise en scene
In the third shot he is holding one of the signs he was showing to his friend. the people in the background look like office workers in a meeting.
The nineth shot shows that the man lives in a rural area as he isn't bothered about how he looks.
The baby is newly born and wrapped in a pink blanket, this is probably done to make the baby seem innocent.
The crow in Lovefield impies a dark film full of death.
The seventh, eighth and nineth show a brilliant and smooth narritive throughout the film.
The whole narritive of this film is very clever, it imples that a farmer has just murdered a baby.
At the end of the film there is a big twist when the farmer lifts up a baby, and the woman comes into shot aswell. The woman has just given birth with the help of the farmer.
The non diagetic sound is parrallel to what is happening on screen.
2.
3.Ourtarget demographicis young adults from the age of 16 to 25. This is because we think that the older and younger generations would not fully enjoy the concept of the narrative.
To get our audience feedback we used Facebook. We uploaded our ideas that we weren't sure on (for example the title sequence) and asked our friends to make constructive comments on how we could improve the ideas, or get them to vote on the part that they think works best.
Here is some feedback on our poster idea.
Example of some feedback
There are some advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook to get our feedback.
Advantages:
Facebook is easy to use, therefore it is simple to upload videos and photos and to comment on them.
Most of our friends are in our target audience, so the people watching it are the people who are the key demographic.
We are able to get hold of the feedback very quickly.
Disadvantages:
As it is our friends giving the feedback, some of it may be biased.
From our audience feedback about the title sequence, it is easy to tell that the first sequence was more popular as it didn't have the title jumping around the screen.
The feedback for the poster states that Jordan and the background look too separate, we tried to sort this out but nothing we did try worked.
[NOTE: VERSION OF KILLER HANGOVER NOT CORRECT - HAS CUT OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF SCREEN SO HAVE NOT INCLUDED SCREENSHOTS FROM THAT MOVIE - WILL ARRANGE ON MONDAY]
1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
INTRO:
Before evaluating my product in relation to real media products conventions, it's important to recognize that the genre of short films contains some of the most diverse, experimental and unconventional pieces of work and thus, is difficult to analyse in terms of forms and conventions. However, there are a few common features that we identified during our research that helped us in the construction of our product.
Example One: Sound
Title shot of Lovefield
A key aspect of our film is the soundtrack. Our main influence concerning sound was Ratthe's hybrid experiment Lovefield, which establishes itself as a thriller through an eyrie parallel soundtrack, only to undermine that with a narrative twist into drama. Although challenging the conventions of narrative, Lovefield uses the conventional soundtrack effectively, as, in order for the twist to be successful, the audience must be convinced that the film is rooted purely in the horror genre.
In a similar way to Lovefield, our narrative is reliant on a narrative twist. Although we did consider a contrapuntal soundtrack (an a capella version of The Special's Ghost Townwas our first idea), it weakened the effect of the twist and destroyed the effect we were trying to achieve. As a result, a haunting track is used in the first section of the piece to suggest his hangover and to build suspense, a slightly more upbeat track is used to create a sense of urgency and silence (excluding foley sounds and dialogue) builds up the tension again when his mother arrives back. This was done to establish our audience's expectation of a horror more prominently, emphasizing the shift in genre with the twist.
Foley sounds are also key to both of the film's success; both employ the diegetic sound of a crow to convey the theme of death [crows have been used as an omen of imminent death for centuries], both use staccato string sounds for jumps and both loud/soft dynamics to generate suspense.
Example Two: Narrative Twist and Genre Conventions
Shots demonstrating the narrative twist in Lovefield
As discussed in the above example, Lovefield challenges the convential narrative outline by including a genre twist. After watching this piece, we felt inspired as a group to experiment with a narrative twist and created a narrative to work around that one concept.
Lovefield relies heavily upon stereotypical techniques from a thriller [ie. the isolated setting and use of crow in the first shot] before shifting into drama. This obedience to conventional techniques is important as, in order for the twist to be successful, the audience must be convinced that the film is rooted purely in the horror genre.
Killer Hangover also uses genre conventions to ensure the effectiveness of the twist. The setting of the entire piece is at the protagonist's secluded home in a rural area [this is emphasized by the establishing shot], referencing classic horror films like The Shining or the more contemporary Woman In Black.
Shot of the house in Woman in Black
Example Three: Representation
The representation of the trucker character in Lovefield develops the conventional approach to this character. The audience are first shown his stereotypical costume through the tilt shot to the left, dehumanizing him and inviting them to judge him with the traditional anxiety and awareness. This is an example of using conventions to communicate narrative.
However, Ratthe contradicts this by placing the trucker in the highly effeminate situation of childbirth. This is further developed with the trucker's positioning in a two-shot with the new born child [see above], undermining the threat that truckers are usually used to convey.
Killer Hangover also uses stereotypical representations to lull the audience into a false sense of security. Our main character is a young male who finds a dead girl in his kitchen. This offers connotations of domestic violence and rape, with the traditional interpretation of the relationship would be that the male is dominant.
However, the 'dead' girl proves not to be dead [just unconscious from an extreme amount of alchohol consumption, which in itself challenges the conventionally passive and prim representation of young women], and the young guy is not guilty of murder or rape but of throwing a party against his parent's orders. This shift of representation - from a murderer to a disobedient youth - is a further example of the genre shift and it's effect on the piece.
Example Four: Mise en Scene - Use of Props
Mixtape in Mixtape
As mentioned in the intro, there are very few set conventions for short films; this is evident in the various approaches to using props. For example, in Mixtape, the prop of the mixtape to the right is used as a way of communicating a relationship between the two main characters. It develops the narrative as it offers connotations of young love and innocence, whilst also placing the film in a different context (ie. the early 1990's). The influence in this prop to the theme and genre of this piece is outstanding and a great example of how, when props are used inventively, they can transform a short film.
Knife in Lovefield
In a similar way, Lovefield uses the prop of a knife to communicate the theme of violence. It is used in a jump, creating audience suspense. However, as in almost every example so far, Lovefield subverts these connotations to change the genre; for example, the audience presume the knife has been used to kill the woman but, in reality, it has been used to cut the umbilical cord of the newborn baby.
In Killer Hangover, we have used close ups on smashed glass to communicate the concept of violence. Although more subtle than a knife, it allowed our group to develop the props connotations in a similar way to Lovefield. This is achieved through the genre shift, which reveals that the smashed glass is the result of a party that was held in the house, and so the connotation is changed from violence to youthfulness.
Example Five: Editing
Use of graphic match in The Last 3 Minutes [left to right]
Editing is used in a variety of ways in short films; for example, a crystal (a prop) is used to graphic match two connected scenes in Po Chan's The Last 3 Minutesand shift the film into a retrospective narrative. This is important as the film is concerned with the life of the protagonist, WIlliam Turner's, life and shows key events to develop character. It also helps structure the narrative as, in the last scene, the crystal is a gift given to him by his father on the day he was born. Thus, the crystal is significant on the first day of his life and the day he dies.
Sound bridge in The Last 3 Minutes
Sound bridges are another form of editing used in The Last 3 Minutes. In the sequence to the left, a sound bridge of a diegetic explosion is used to connect the shift in setting from placid beach to hectic war zone. This is important, as, with the constant changes in setting, the audience must be able to understand that it is all William's retrospective narration on his life.
Whilst editing Killer Hangover, we were keen to incorporate several unusual technqiues into our film. For example, we have used split screens in our piece to convey the urgency the protagonist is feeling in addition to building up suspense about his parent's imminent arrival. We have also included a clock in post-production, to emphasis the concept of time passing. This constant awareness of time passing is a technique we have used to build suspense.
Example Six: Camerawork
POV shot from The Last 3 Minutes
As a group, we found several interesting uses of camerawork whilst researching. For example, POV shots are used continually in The Last 3 Minutesto emphasis the retrospective nature of it's narrative, whilst also encouraging the audience to empathise with the protagonist. For example, the POV shot on the left puts the audience in the position that the character is in - they are asked to empathise with the character that is dying [there is a close up on his face] in addition to William.
A film that influenced our use of camerawork was 44 Inch Chest, which we studied in our AS year. The film opens with slow close up's of the damage in the house. The pace of the piece challenges the usual conventions for a violent scene and so, creates suspense and focuses the audience of the violence of the scene.
This sequence had a high level of influence in the opening of Killer Hangover, with several close up's of the damage caused being shown with slow fade's used to connect them. This has a similar effect to 44 Inch Chest and builds suspense for the first time the audience meets Jordan.
POSTER:
Final poster for Killer Hangover
As part of our brief, we were asked to create a corresponding poster to market our film. As a group, we researched a variety of posters although, it is important to note, struggled to find posters for short films as they are not used as prominently in the promotion of short films. However, we have incorporated our research into our final design.
Example One: Lighting
Lighting is used to convey characterisation and narrative in the poster for Animal Kingdom. For example, the genre of crime is communicated by the darkness round the edges, creating a sinister tone. Low key lighting is also used to cast shadows on the characters, particularly the main character in the center of the 'family portrait', who has a shadow dividing his face. This communicates the narrative of the film to the audience (ie. 'Animal Kingdom tells the story of a seventeen-year old as he navigates his survival amongst an explosive criminal family and the detective who thinks he can save him'). This conflict and opposition between police vs criminal, right vs wrong and family vs responsibility are all communicated by the low key lighting on his face and develops him as a character to empathise with.
In a similar way, we have used low key lighting to create a sinister feel to our product. The low key lighting has cast a shadow on one half of Jordan's face and shirt and suggests the mystery that surrounds his character. This is important as, in order for our narrative twist to work, the audience must presume him to have murdered the young girl he finds in his kitchen.
Example Two: Logo
Logo's are used in many films to create a marketable brand. One example of this is The Dark Knightwhich uses the brand logo twice to promote the film. This connects the film to the Batman comics, appealing to a 'comic-book' audience as well as with the trilogy's first movie, Batman Begins.
Although our short film isn't as established as The Dark Knight, we wanted the audience to be able to connect the poster to the film so designed a logo that would be used in both. Our main influence for the logo was the Artic Monkey's album cover for I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, which is a concept album (an album with a narrative that connects the tracks) that follows a working class young man on a night out on the town, focusing on events like fighting with police [Riot Van], clubbing [Dancing Shoes] and getting wasted [I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor]. These themes are encapsulated by the logo, which emulates early 2000's alcohol warning labels. As alcohol is a key theme in our narrative, we decided to reference the same concept.
Example Three: Colour
Colour is another way in which posters can communicate themes and narratives. For example, the colour scheme for This Is England suggests the themes of nationalism that the film deals with. It also places the film firmly into an English setting, developing the context in which the film is set.
As a group, we also wanted to use colour in our poster to communicate the genre and narrative of our film. The prominence of red in our poster is significant as it references the theme of blood that is involved in the film. It also communicates the violent themes contained in the film and places the film in the genre of horror. This is important to our poster as it signals the target audience of our product and develops it into marketing tool to create audience intrigue and interest in our film.
Example Four: Positioning of Character
There are several techiques for the positioning of characters that we identified during our research. For example, This Is England shows a group of characters, creating a sense of family/community. The way they are grouped together also resonates a police line up, suggesting a criminal theme in the film. The group is positioned in the bottom third of the poster, also suggesting their working class background.
However, City of Dreamersuses a different technique. The sole focus of the poster is the protagonist, Rose, suggesting her significance to the narrative. It also allows the audience to focus on her body language which, when combined with her facial expression, suggests that she has an issue from her past to resolve. The way that the rest of the poster revolves around her also suggests her prominence and also suggests that she is entering that seaside setting of the film. Her central positioning also draws the audience's focus to the guitar on her back, enforcing the musical nature of the film.
In a similar way to City of Dreamers, our protagonist is the central focus of our poster , enforcing his significance to our film. It also draws the audience's attention to his sinister body language and creates doubt over his character.
REVIEW:
The final LWL's review for Killer Hangover
We also had to be aware of the conventions for both the layout and language of the print version of Little White Lies. The main way we achieved this was to study the most recent edition of the magazine and use that as a template for our review.
LAYOUT:
Recent LWL's review for The Artist
One of the key conventions is the layout of the review; for example, the picture at the top is a screen shot from the film itself instead of marketing material (ie. poster) and it is slightly rounded on the edges. The font used is important as well, although we could not identically imitiate that as it is a LWL's exclusive font. The title is bold and significantly larger than the text below, which always features the director, main actors and release dates. The spacing of this text is different to the main text of the review.
In addition, the review is divided into three columns and each is justified. The first letter of the review itself is larger and in bold and the review is closed by the reviewer's name in bold. The page number is a three-digit (for number under 100, 0 is used as a prefix) and a hand drawn icon from the cover art is included next to the page number.
All of these conventions feature in the layout of our review.
TEXT:
Text from the LWL's review of The Artist
There are also conventions for the text itself. LWL's is aimed at a film literate audience so references to indie and mainstream films are used to draw similarities to pre-existing movies and give the reader an idea of the style of the film. film language is also used to describe appealing technical aspects of the film, such as sound and editing. The first two paragraphs are often used to establish the plot, while the rest analyzes the techniques employed by the director. In order to create a realistic review, we have incorporated these techniques into our review for Killer Hangover
3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
WHO IS OUR AUDIENCE?:
Firstly, it is important to outline and justify our target demographic. As discussed in the link, we have determined our audience as 'a working class/lower middle class demographic, between the ages of 16-25', with a focus on males (although not excluding a female audience).
TECHNIQUES FOR OBTIANING FEEDBACK:
With a strong sense of our target audience in mind, the techniques which we employed to gather audience feedback were vital to the quality of feedback we received. Our main source of feedback was on social networking sites, such as Facebook. This was a great platform for feedback, as it had advantages for both the audience and our group. For example, our audience would be familiar with the layout of the site and thus, it would be easy for them to a) view the film, poster and review and b) comment directly onto the site with feedback. This ease would mean we would get more feedback, as our audience would be more prepared to spend a small amount of time communicating the thoughts and feelings.
In addition, from a film-maker's perspective, this ability to maintain direct communication between yourself and your target audience throughout the entire process of making the film (ie. research and planning, construction, evaluation) is a great tool for creating a product that will entertain that demographic. We found this whilst constructing our piece; we had created two different openings and decided that the best way of choosing was to let our target audience decide which one they preferred. So, we uploaded the link to our Facebook and made the decision according to the feedback we received. This manner of feedback reported that, out of the 21 people we asked (all being within the parameters of our target audience), 17 chose Version One, arguing that it seemed 'more modern and clean cut' and allowed the audience to 'focus on the title' and thus, theme of the piece. As a result of such resounding support for Version One, this is the version of the opening (with the added logo for branding) that is seen in our final product, as it is better suited to the demand of our audience.
FEEDBACK FOR FILM:
We have also used Facebook to obtain audience feedback in the evaluative stages of our portfolio. We uploaded our film onto YouTube, linked it to our Facebook and let people comment on the post. Below is an annotated screenshot from Facebook that contains a segment of the feedback for our film (comments in red are negative, green highlights positive comments and gold is a comment regarding intertextuality).
Screenshot of Facebook feedback for our film
The main criticism that we interpreted from this method of feedback is a continuity error in our piece; as one of the comments explains that in one of the scenes, the character's 'Dad rings but he goes 'hey Mum'. In total, three people from our target audience picked up on this continuity error, meaning that it was too apparent. Continuity errors are damaging to a film's effectiveness as they draw focus away from the narrative and distract the audience. From an audience's point of view, this makes the film less entertaining, as they can miss key points or begin to question the realism of the piece and thus, are unable to identify with the narrative. If we were to return to the piece and re-film certain scenes, we would ensure that the continuity of the piece was correct, increasing the effectiveness of our film
Close up of continuity error
However, we also recieved positive feedback about our film. One of the comments declared that she 'loved the story line' and that it was 'very clear'. This is an especially positive comment as one of the main criticisms of our AS piece was that the narrative was too unclear for an audience to enjoy or comprehend. In order to counteract that, we were keen to incorporate simpler narratives in our transitionary task, Hero of War, and our final A2 piece. Comments like this demonstrate a development in our ability to communicate a clear narrative to our audience and this affects the engagement of an audience with our film.
The comment in gold is a fantastic piece of feedback as it identifies one of our key influences, Lovefield. This implies two successful aspects of our film; firstly, it shows that our intense research [ENTER LINK TO LOVEFIELD RESEARCH HERE] of Lovefield and the techniques employed to establish an effective narrative twist was successful, as the person that commented could identify the aim of our film and draw similarities between Lovefield and Killer Hangover [ie. the raven, narrative twist and use of soundtrack].
However, it also shows the power of intertextuality in the marketing of a film. For example, the professional standing of our piece was increased for that member of our audience because they were able to create a link between an existing media product and our film. If we could retrospectively apply this technique into our poster [ie. by referencing Lovefield on our poster, or selecting awards that Lovefield had been nominated for to include on our poster], the marketing aspect of the piece would have been improved and a film literate segment of our target audience would be more inclined to watch the film.
FEEDBACK FOR POSTER:
Final version of our poster for Killer Hangover
In a similar way to the film, we used audience feedback throughout the process of researching, designing and evaluating our poster. For example, whilst in the draft stage of the posters, we decided to pick two of the three (Adam's and Stephen's in addition to mine) to develop further. Instead of using Facebook as our main source of feedback, we decided to present groups of students at our college with tangible copies of each poster and ask them to a) guess the genre of our film, b) guess the narrative and c) choose the one that would make them most likely to watch the film. This feedback educated us concerning our audience's understanding of the concept behind the posters and the entertaining value of each. The most successful in each catergory was my draft, although several changes (such as removal of the kitchen setting and use of logo) were suggested by our audience. The benefits of this tangible feedback is that we can ask questions more effectively and physically see the response our audience had.
The same technique was used to obtain feedback during the construction of the piece; we would print off drafts of our final poster and ask members of our college to make suggestions of what could be improved. Through this feedback, we included two [previously, we had only one] review comments on the poster as our audience felt that further support was needed to improve the appeal of our poster and corresponding film.
During the evaluation stage, we returned to using Facebook as our main source of obtaining feedback for our poster. Below are two screenshots showing our feedback; again, red shows negative feedback and green shows positive.
A consistent criticism was that Jordan needed to be blended into the image more, as some members of our target audience felt it looked like two seperate images. If we were to improve the poster, we would ensure this was done to a professional level as it distracts the audience from more important details of the poster, such as the blood and cuts on Jordan's shirt that communicate the theme of violence or the release date.
Another comment was that the two review comments seemed to contradict one another, with one claiming 'a note-worthy experiment in the genre of horror' and the other an 'enjoyable lighthearted short film'! These oxymoronic statements are an oversight on our group's part and undermine the professional nature we were hoping to achieve with the poster. In a similar way to the former comment, it also distracts the audience from the details we'd like them to focus on.
Screenshots of feedback from Facebook for our poster
However, there was also many positive comments made by our target audience, including the colour scheme [we spent a substantial amount of time on deciding the colours we would use for the background, deciding on red for it's connotations with blood, anger, wine and passion] so, in future, we would hope to continue this as one of our strengths. The use of logo was also praised, another aspect of marketing we were keen to incorporate into our poster.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, audience feedback has been a key aspect in the entire process of our portfolio. Through constant vigilance to the needs and demands of our target audience - whether a desire to entertain them or to give them a character they can personally identify with - I believe we have created a successful product that fulfills the brief we were given. Of course, our feedback also demonstrates certain aspects of our portfolio that we should be aware of for future work but I feel that we would be able to use that feedback and improve our entire product by applying the improvements I have suggested
As social media sites grow and Facebook becomes the biggest and easiest way to talk to all your friends, it made sense for us to upload the poster, film and review onto Facebook and ask our friends for feedback. The only problem with doing this is some of the responses can be quite...rude. As well as this we also asked Family members, classmates and Ollie the technician.
