Graham ForwardA2 Media Evaluation

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

media products?In my short film I have both used and challenged existing real media products, this can be seen in my planning stages as I was deciding the genre of my short film, In the end I went for a western/action sub genre short film. After researching the conventions of a Western/Action Sub Genre film I have found the inclusion of the following things: lots of cutting, Fades used to end the scene and more than one or two characters and often a variety of special effects.

The way in which my Short film challenges and develops forms and conventions of real life media product is my idea to attempt to create a sub genre film. What I have tried to do is create an action film however with a western sub genre because of my scene shot inspired by a scene from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly where I have challenged the conventions by following a similar pattern in terms of filming.

The infamous standoff scene between the good, the bad and the ugly.

My attempt at shooting a similar stand off scene in a more urban location.

I have also developed the forms and conventions by changing the dialogue and adding in a few more shots once again to fit with the conventions of an action/ western film. I have also challenged the forms and conventions by using two blonde haired actors as leading parts against the stereotypical darker haired actors which are more common in Action/Western films.

I looked at a variety of action films as well to see how to protagonist's where given there missions and how their bosses where presented for example I looked at Casino Royale and how the character M is played by a woman as opposed to the stereotypical male role and how she always seems in control of Bond and knows exactly where he is all the time as I have portrayed in my short film in the scene where The Boss sends a text to the spies telling them to go to the train station. Similarly I looked at the opening of Mission Impossible where the protagonist receives his mission over the phone whilst he is climbing a mountain, whilst I haven't gone to such extreme lengths to film in terms of location I have used the idea of a task being received from someone of a higher power The opening scenes of

Casino Royale where M is giving Bond his mission.

Close ups of the protagonist face whilst receiving his mission from a mysterious source.

I feel that the combinations of both my main and ancillary texts are very effective. All three of which were inspired by the research I have done into short and feature films and how they are presented to the public on cinematic release. All three of my texts have synergy which is the ability to link the three pieces of work together so for example if you saw my film poster would you be able to tell that it goes with my film. How I have accomplished synergy is by using the same style of text on the Title on all the texts, as well as using similar images on my film review and poster.

I looked into movie magazines such as Total Film and Empire magazine to formulate ideas and a template before actually creating the final poster and review.I researched short films and how they were created and the effects they can have on audiences.

I researched the conventions of an action/ western film posters and film reviews. I tried to make all products as accurate to fit forms and conventions of existing products e.g. I did not create any drastic changes to my final products only added in a few more shots or a bit more editing in places.

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

As you can see both my film review and poster use similar stills from the short film allowing the audience to be able to connect these two texts with the short film.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After I used YouTube to upload my Rough Cut I posted a link onto Facebook and asked my friends to give me critical feedback on how they thought my work was going and I received the following bits of feedback and tried to take all bits of feedback into account when completing my Final Cut:

I specifically took Andrews feedback into consideration when editing for my Final cut as I felt his feedback was the most detailed and useful.

A comment about my choice of location/ setting which I took into account and cut some shots of walking as they where too long.

I also got feedback from fellow students.

I used new media technologies all throughout the planning stages, creating and evaluating stages from Photoshop for drawings and sketches.I used the internet with websites such as blogger and Google to help with my research stages.

I used YouTube to look up short films and the ending scenes of action/ western films. I used cameras, Imovie/premier pro to edit my Rough Cut and Animatic. This was to give me inspiration for the narrative of my film and I used the softwares and cameras to edit the footage that I have shot and to edit the clips to the forms and conventions f an action/ western.

I used cameras, tripods Macs premier pro I movie, YouTube and Blogger to manage and create my final project and Facebook to receive feedback from others to hear their opinions. I used presentation software’s such as PowerPoint and slide share to create and upload my evaluation.

I used websites to teach me how to do a split screen effect in premier pro with tutorial videos of how to make these effective. I used a variety of company websites to look at short films and how they were created.

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

An After effects tutorial I used.

I used Premiere Pro to edit my whole project.