Evaluation

Over the course I produced a main product and 2 ancillary texts:

• Main product: A short film exploring modern British themes.

• Two ancillary texts:

A Poster of the short film.

A Magazine review of the short film.

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

    All 3 of my groups’ media products; short-film, poster and magazine review either use, developed orchallenged the forms and conventions of real media products. Firstly in terms of the short film it was clear that after extensive research (in which I looked at numerous existing media texts), I could identify a specific set of forms and conventions that short films tend to follow. (Conventions of a short film) During this stage I identified many forms and conventions; for instance short films often do not follow a conventional narrative structure and can be either linear or non-linear, as well as either open or closed ended. This unconventional narrative structure also means that not all Short films follow Todorov’s theory of narrative structure. Additionally short films often incorporate a moral message or some sense of deeper meaning that is often explored through a plot-twist at the end of the film. Another important convention is that, as short films tend to rarely use special effects and keep dialogue to a minimum, frequently making use of voiceovers. This is due to the fact that they normally have very-low budgets and so avoid the use of special effects or expensive microphone equipment in order to keep costs low.

    Some if not all of these conventions identified are evident in the short films I studied when carrying out research into this form of media. First of all “Sold” by Nadia Attia (2004). The main character Jon Smith has all but given up on his dreams and aspirations, and it’s only through a strange shopping channel experience that he finally buys into the notion of happiness. This film is linear and follows a circular narrative structure; it doesn’t make use of special effects and explores a moral message of the lack of community in modern day Britain, but also on the problem of youth unemployment. They are also apparent in “Double Take” by Tou Stappard (2003), the film revolves around what happens after a young male steals a bag from a woman and discovers he is about to become the victim of a vigilante. The film is non-linear and open-ended, and again doesn’t make use of special effects or extensive dialogue. The film also has a moral message on the non-existence of British values in modern day society.

   
    My Short Film “Cartoon Violence” follows these conventions, and the film revolves around Billy (the main character), who is being bullied by Jack. The film explores the consequences of Billy’s action if he decides to protect himself by carrying a knife or not. The film follows these conventions as like “Sold” it has a linear narrative, and as in both “Sold” and “Double Take” does not make use of extensive dialogue and also has a moral message, that knife crime is a serious issue and that measures need to be taken to remove the causes of knife crime. However my project “Cartoon Violence” does challenge some of the conventions as we have made extensive use of animation, which is very unusual for a short film to mix animation and real footage. We purposefully decided to challenge this convention, as we believed it would emphasise the moral message of the film, but also make the film stand out from the countless other short-films that explore similar narrative themes.

    Furthermore during the research we identified various genres that were present in many of the short-films we looked at, the most common of which was crime, and within this genre of crime, youth crime was predominant. I also found that they portrayed negative aspects for example crime, anti social behaviour and the lack of British values. Also form the research I identified several re-occurring themes that all reflect the problems of modern day Britain; youth unemployment, urban decay, lack of community, poverty, immigration, etc…


     This is similar with the other products i.e. the poster and the magazine review. Firstly when researching the poster I again studied various existing (Film Poster conventions l)texts e.g. “The Matrix,” “Platoon,” “Shawn of the Dead” and “Elizabeth.” While studying these examples I noticed that there were two types of posters, a teaser poster and a full promo poster, both have very different conventions but as I produced a promo poster I will focus on this type. I identified that all film poster have a film title, a tag line, billing block as well as the name of the main stars as well as a main image that incorporates the stars, there is also a background image.

   
   The poster I produced very much uses these conventions as the poster does incorporate the film title, tag line, billing block and does include both a main image that incorporates the main characters and a background image. The only convention I challenged was that my poster does not include the name of the stars. I chose to do this because as the main actors of are unknowns and the inclusion of there names would be pointless as the audience would not learn any further information about the film nor would it further promote the film.

    In terms of the magazine review I again studied numerous examples of existing  texts (Magazine Review conventions) e.g. “Empire,” “Total Film,” “PreVue” and “Sight & Sound.” I immediately noticed that the different magazines had different forms and  conventions, but some of these forms and conventions were apparent in all of   the existing media texts. All of the texts had the following conventions, section title, film title, main picture, secondary picture, graphics, breakout boxes, call to action, etc… However it is Important to note that they all had different   modes of address, depending on their target audience.

     Out of all 3 of the products I stuck to the established conventions of a magazine review the most, incorporating all of them into my product and not developing/ challenging them at all. This is especially true in that I used the established layout conventions i.e. Section title is located in the top right hand-side of the page, Call to action and page number located at the bottom of the page, etc…

     As a result my magazine review appears to be very similar to other existing tests. However this was intended because the magazine review will be distributed at a film festival, and potentially consumed by a large variety of people and ultimately ensuring the article is easy to read and accessible is key to the product being successful. Thus the decision to use the established forms and conventions and not develop or challenge them would ensure that the magazine review produced would accessible and easy to read, as it would be similar to other existing products.

• How effective is combination of main and ancillary texts?

The two ancillary texts, the film poster and the magazine review are both very effective at supporting the main product (short film). However I believe the poster is most effective at supporting the main product especially in terms of audience. The short film has an intended audience of 15-20 (Intended audience of short film), and the poster targets this especially well due to a variety of techniques I made use of. The poster has a young urban look to it, achieved through the use of bright colours that would capture this particular age groups attention, supported by the graffiti clearly visible in the poster. The style of font used in both the film title and the tag line is also is aimed at the intended audience as it has a young almost graffiti like feel to it. The main picture of the poster displaying conflict occurring between two teenagers would immediately provoke similarities to “Kidulthood,” which was an incredibly successful film amongst 15 – 20 year olds, and so would further target the type of audience the short film is trying to attract. All these factors combined together target the intended audience of the short film very well, and is ultimately why I believe the poster is most effective at supporting the main product.

 

The magazine review on the other hand, although still effective at supporting the main product, in terms of audience it is not that effective. This is due to the magazine review being designed with a very different target audience to that of the film. As the people who attend film-festivals (where the magazine will be distributed), are normally older and more middle aged, this is reflected in the target audience being primarily males between the ages of 25-50. Importantly the magazine review does target this audience very well through the standard conventions of magazine reviews being followed, the neutral colour scheme adopted and the mode of address, simplistic but formal and without the use of colloquialisms and slang.

But ultimately the magazine review is targeting a male audience between the age of 25 and 50, which is simply not the intended audience of the film. The magazine review attempts to overcome this by incorporating a still of the animation as a secondary image to try and gain interest from an audience that largely is not interested in this sub-genre, and so simply will not be interested in the film. This is why I believe the poster is most effective at supporting the short-film, as they both target the same audience.

In terms of narrative the main and both ancillary texts all work very well together because they all communicate the narrative to the audience extremely well. The ancillary texts both work well as they both give a simplistic overview of the narrative. Both the poster and animation feature frames from both the video-footage and animation conveying to the audience that the short-film is a mix of animation and video-footage, both texts also clearly connotative the theme of youth crime/violence. However out of the poster and the article, the article is best at getting across the narrative this is due to the article, as the poster can only portray a limited amount of the narrative but the article enables the narrative to be to described in greater detail.

In terms of genre, the genre of youth and crime is seen in all 3 of the products. The main genre is quite easily picked up as both the poster and magazine review feature frames of conflict between two youths and so the genre of youth crime is clearly portrayed. However the genre of knife crime is a lot stronger in the film then any of the other texts because we choose not to focus to heavily on knife crime as all though we wanted similarities to be clear between our film and “Kidulthood,” we did not want the audience to dismiss the film as another cheap copy. Overall the texts work well in giving an indication of the genre I believe the poster works best as it emphasises the youth and urban aspect of crime more than the Poster.

From an institutional point of view the ancillary texts are very effective at supporting the main product, as they have both been produced to promote the film. They work together as they both target different audiences and so although attempt to make the film appeal to more than just its target audience. Furthermore the poster and the magazine review fulfil separate needs in terms of promoting the film, the poster is produced by the film production company to advertise there product and as it is a poster can be seen by a potentially limitless number of people. Whereas the magazine review fulfils a separate need, as after a consumer spots the poster and becomes interested in the film (the purpose of a poster), they will often refer to a magazine review before they make their final decision on whether or not to spend their money on going to view the film. This is often done, as magazine reviews are not produced by the film production company, but by an independent third party, and so can offer the audience an unbiased view of the film that would simply be impossible to get from the film production company.

·      What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a crucial when creating media products, as it allows the development team to gauge the reaction from their intended audience and make the necessary changes to the product to make it more suitable for the audience. An example of this is that after audience feedback for Thelma and Louise (1991) they changed the ending to a freeze frame of the car about to go over a cliff, as during audience feedback the vast majority of the sample group said they disliked the original ending, in which the car goes over the cliff and explodes as it crashes down.

We carried out audience feedback by showing our film to a sample group; they then filled out a questionnaire. The feedback we received was mostly positive however some areas for improvement were discovered, and the most common responses were that there was too much walking and that a score was needed at certain parts of the film. As a result we made these changes in that we added a score to certain parts of our film, and cut down the walking and as a result the final version of our film is vastly superior to the first edit.


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We then did the same for both the poster and magazine review. This feedback was equally effective as it allowed us to gauge an audiences’ reaction and then make changes in response to these changes. In terms of the poster we received virtually no negative feedback. However one questionnaire a person did state they did not like the colour scheme and thought it should be changed, we choose to ignore this and keep the colour scheme the same, as the colour scheme was the most common feature of the poster to be praised during the audience feedback. And so even though we did not make any changes the feedback was still very valuable as it confirmed that the poster is suitable for its intended audience.

This was similar with the magazine review except this time we had one person say that the main image should be changed as they felt it did not accurately represent the film, however again while studying the feedback we received in the questionnaires we found that far more people highlighted the main image as positive of the magazine review, and so again we choose to ignore this. However we did make one change as several people did highlight that they thought a different colour scheme would work best, and so we I decided to experiment with different colours and eventually changed the graphic colours from blue to red and believe it is much more effective. Again I did not make drastic changes, as the feedback was very much positive overall, but nonetheless the feedback was still very much useful as it confirms that the product does target its intended audience effectively.

 

·      How did you use new media technologies in the construction research planning and evaluation stages?

My group made extensive use of new media technologies to aide us throughout the creation of our entire project. In the research and planning stage I made extensive use of the Internet, utilizing search engines (Example of search engine I used), blogging technology Blogging website I used and video sharing websites (Video-Sharing website I used). 

An example of how video-sharing websites helped me with research into an animation styles.


In the production phase I utilised digital video cameras and digital cameras to produce the video footage and in the production of the animation I used of interactive whiteboard technology and animation software. In the post-production phase I used I-Movie, a non-linear piece of editing software to edit the film, Photoshop (photo-manipulation software) to produce the poster and Pages (desktop publishing software) to produce the magazine article and the Internet to download copyright free music, sound effects and fonts.

These technologies proved invaluable during each stage. Video-sharing websites proved particularly invaluable in providing short-films to analyse and gather information/inspiration from. In the production phase digital video cameras allowed us to capture high quality footage and audio, and the use of the interactive whiteboard allowed the animation to be of much higher quality and produced in significantly less time.

In the post-production phase new media technology was particularly significant as I-Movie HD (Information) is non-linear editing software meaning that we could shoot our film in any order we wanted. Non-linear editing software as it is non-destructive also allowed my ideas to continue to develop in post-production, and enabled to me to react to audience feedback. And the newspaper and poster would have been of much poorer quality without the use these of new media technolgies. In the evaluation section we used our blog to upload our evaluation to the blog.

However there were some limitations, first of all when shooting the film the quality of the camera was poor and at times the footage seems fuzzy and blurry, and could easily have been improved if we had access to a HD camera. Another major limitation was sound because the camera’s microphone was of very low quality that any sound picked up was often poor and very distorted, and so we had to greatly limit the dialogue. Also we had no control over lighting and so were greatly limited to only filming at certain times, and ensuring all shots were completed in the same day so as to not cause continuity problems.