Evaluation

By Tate Muchirahondo

The task was to produce a film, poster and a magazine review on a genre of our choice. We chose to produce a drama-thriller film.

Introduction

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

My media products predominantly use conventions of real media products (films, film reviews and film posters), in particular, those used in the drama-thriller genre. My understanding of the codes and conventions came from real life media texts. After watching the short films, I compared and contrasted similar conventions that came from the text. It was from this process that I was able to make conscious choices about how I would use my findings in my media product. My film has taken ideas from films that I analysed.

Film

Whilst filming, we used a variety of camera shots, movements and angles to promote different reactions amongst the audience, but mainly to develop the confrontation between the main characters as the film progresses.

The technical codes of a drama-thriller usually include fast paced segments merged with tense sections. These fast paced passages are created through the use of quick cuts between shots and are maintained through sequences made up of tracking shots and other camera movements. These techniques can be seen in films such as Locke, directed by Steven Knight. Throughout the production of our short film, we attempted to imitate these classic conventions in order to create tension and anticipation amongst the audience.

Another convention that I feel to have met is that my narrative is presented through the camera, the mise-en-scene and through dialogue. This is common to most short films. In addition, the narrative is presented as a series of clues of which the audience must decipher, similar to Barthes Enigma Code narrative theory. The enigma code is where the audience is unsure why certain things are happening. This technique wasn’t common in most short films I studied. Another narrative theory we used in our film was also by Roland Barthes 1977, in which he said that ‘An increase in tension’ is a key feature in a film, we followed this to give a sense of excitement. The benefit of using this theory was that we could grab the audience’s attention and play with their emotions throughout.

In addition, a convention I met was the prominent use of close-ups and mid-shots. This technique allows the audience to engage with the character and to create an understanding of the protagonists’ personality and form a relationship between audience and the character. This influenced my decision to establish the relationship between audience and character through camera, sound and mise-en-scene rather than voice over. I think this technique is very effective at enforcing the connection between the audience and the text, which is similar to most thriller films.

Further to this, I met another convention of short films by utilising mise-en-scene to make sure the representations of the characters reflect those of contemporary society. I feel I have met this convention fully because, I feel that the costumes etc. fit the representation.

The tense sections of a drama-thriller are mostly made up of extreme close ups, usually of a character’s face to show the strain he/she is under and are set in places with low-key lighting.

In the majority of media productions, the title appears at the beginning of the film along with some names of key actors and directors etc. the written codes in my production uses the typical written conventions which appear in these films. This is essentially seen by the fact that the title of the film appears at the beginning of the film. This is followed by the entire sequence and then some brief credits. I feel that this way works successfully in terms of the way the film is allowed to develop and the fact that the film should progress without wasting time. I feel this is very important in a short film simply because they are so brief and time should not be wasted.

Film poster

The common conventions of a film poster include, a large image, usually of the main character, the title of the film, a tag line and a credit block. My film poster challenges the conventions of a film poster as it does not contain an image of the main actor. Instead it has a graphic image, meaning it doesn’t give too much away. This intrigues the audience as they are left wondering what’s going to happen in the film. Posters of the thriller genre are usually made up of dark colours with shadows. Thriller film posters usually have eerie, sinister fonts. I believe this way of creating a poster can be used to attract the target audience, who are attracted to watch thriller films

Question 1 cont.

Film Review

Film magazine reviews differ significantly depending on who they are addressing, yet the conventions that appear in them remain similar in general.

They’re made up of: a section title, a headline, a strapline, an introduction, subheadings, columns, pictures, issue information and breakout boxes.

Our film review is typical in the sense that most of these conventions are present in our review.

I chose not to develop or challenge the established conventions of the magazine layout due to the fact that it may confuse the audience if I was to switch the format around. The layout if easy to interpret and understand. The action shot image of the film allows the audience to gain an insight into the film.

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

When creating both the main product and ancillary products, I felt it necessary to show a common theme throughout, which would appeal to the age group of 16 – 25. I felt this was important not only because this was my target audience, but also because I didn’t feel it would make sense to have different texts which would be observed differently.

What I believe makes the main product appeal to the 16-25 year old age group is the action packed theme of the film. The topic of the film would interest people of this age group. The purpose of this film is to entertain, so there is an inclusion of comic moments which occur throughout the film.

In terms of the film review, the large image again, emphasizes the fact that this film is a drama-thriller as well as making sure it appears appealing to the target audience. However, I feel this is less obvious in the article simply because of the large amount of text in the article and the lack of images which may put off the 16 – 25 year olds, while appealing to an older, educated age group. This can make the overall combination feel somewhat disjointed. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing due to the importance of reaching a wider audience group, which is vital especially in the context of this particular film because the message it attempts to portray is one that can be grasped by all. I believe that the combination of the three texts in terms of portraying the genre is very effective while it also reaches its target audience as a whole.

In the production phase of the film, I was able to incorporate action shots from the film into the film review. I felt this was an effective way for the audience to gain an insight into the film. I was also able to combine elements of the film into my ideas of the film poster in terms of the costumes or props, which complemented the colour of the poster nicely.

From an institutional point of view, the importance of the relationships between the products is reinforced due to the need to target the specific age group of 16 – 25. in this instance, the film review and particularly the film poster are an essential part of the film’s marketing and distribution. However, the fact that the magazine article strays away from the target audience reduces the effectiveness of the marketing while the film poster remains a successful way of reaching target audience.

After conducting a questionnaire on the audience, my results show that the target audience were impressed with the combination of the main product and ancillary texts. One of the questions was ‘do you feel that the whole package (film, poster and review) link well together?’ We received a positive response to this question, with everyone answering ‘yes’ (See question 3).

Overall, I feel the combination of the three texts is very effective due to the fact that it reaches the target audience, while showing the audience the genre of the film without giving too much away in the narrative.

Question 2 cont.

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is an essential tool when creating any type of media product. It gives the director the chance to see how his/her product will be received by the target audience, while any suggestions to improve it can be heard.

In terms of my main product I conducted questionnaires containing questions such as ‘do you think there was good use of camera and editing software?’ This gave me a clear indication on how our film was received by our target audience. The feedback I received was mostly positive with the audience saying the film was ‘appealing’.

Question 3 cont.

However, some negative points did occur, particularly concerning the audio of the parts of the film which contained dialogue. The main complaint was that the speech of the characters could not be clearly heard. This was due to the limitations of the technology we were using, so there was not much we could do to alter this problem.

In terms of the ancillary texts, I again adopted the idea of producing questionnaires after showing people of the target audience, as well as a few who weren’t. I took their responses into account when producing the ancillary texts and I used the most popular ones when developing both the magazine and the poster.

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

While researching short films we were shown a variety of productions from different genres to give us a taste of short films. However, most of the research and planning phase consisted of using the internet to find out about how to effectively create short films while we used youtube.com and www.shortoftheweek.com to view examples of short films which was key to our research. The internet gave us a place to find facts as well as common conventions from existing media products.

In terms of publishing our research we created a blog on tumblr.com where we could show our findings.

To take pictures of locations of the film we used a mobile phone with a sharp 8 megapixel camera, which is an example of the extent of technological convergence. To take pictures for the film review I used an 18 megapixel Canon 600d as I wanted better quality photos for the film review. I produced the film poster on Adobe Photoshop CS6, which meant that I could use a variety of effects, such as using the Lasso Tool to crop out the image. The fact that I was using Photoshop meant that I could freely take photos and test them out in the poster background to see if they were suitable with the format of the poster. We used 2 Canon 600d cameras to shoot the film as well as some sound equipment including microphones.

Question 4 cont.

I produced the film review on Adobe InDesign. A problem I encountered with this program was the lack of spell checker while I was typing, particularly while I was typing up the article, which meant I had to be extra careful when spelling words and with my grammar. It also meant I had to manually check over my work after typing it to check for errors which was an inconvenience.

While in the post-production phase of the film we used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the footage we captured. Using this piece of editing equipment we were able to use special effects such as colour correction, which enable us to make certain scenes appear more effective. This program also allowed us to successfully merge clips together using cuts and transitions, giving the sequence more sense. However, this program did offer some limitations. In particular, we weren’t able to convert the sequence into QuickTime format without losing a significant amount of the image quality.

For the evaluation I used Microsoft PowerPoint which allowed me to incorporate images and links into my work and also allowed me to show the sources of my research.