Ben Brown - Evaluation

Media Evaluation


1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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For our A2 media project we were asked to produce a short social realist film with added sub genres if you wished.

We produced a 6 minute short social realist film with the sub genre of romance.

We decided to title the film ‘Nearly Reunited’, this was meant to represent the fact that there was a strong bond between a male and female character but no matter how hard they tried they never ended up together.

What are social realist films?

Social realism is the genre of film that recognizes real life and tries to portray these true to life events in a naturalistic and realistic way in a film.

“Social realism in films is representative of real life, with all its difficulties. The stories and people portrayed are everyday characters, usually from working class backgrounds. Typically, films within the social realist canon are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the daily grind” this was the definition given by http://filmstudies.suite101.com/article.cfm/social_realism_in_british_film

Our film follows the conventions of a social realist genre because it portrays the day to day problems of people that the audience can relate to rather than being unrealistic or fictional.








Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold and Mike Leigh are some famous social realist film directors. Their main aim is to concentrate on certain important themes/issues that people experience in their lives and to portray them in a film and represent and stereotype the characters in such a way you can relate to them.

Aims of social realist films
The aims of social realist films are to capture issues of the average person on day to day events, such things like unemployment, depression, uncertainty and many more things which people can relate to. Ms. Arnold,the director of Fish Tank, said: “I want to make it feel like we’ve dropped in on some people’s lives. With a lot of films, people are sitting on the outside looking in, but I want the audience to get a bit more intimately involved with what’s going on, so that they maybe can experience it a little bit more intensely.”

Some of the typical uses of Mise en Scene are

- Naturalistic light
- Ordinary (day to day) props
- Every day or regular themes and issues
- Usual and urban setting (working class environment)
- Costumes that try to represent their character
- iconography
- Desaturated colour

How we used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of typical Mise en Scene in social realist films









We conformed to the convention of using natural light. It worked well in our film, mainly in the shots that we took outside for example in the park.

Using natural light did not work so well sometimes because one night as it started to get late some of the natural light faded and some of the indoor shots where dark for example the one of Sophie below sitting on the sofa.












We thought very carefully about the standard props for out film. We tried to include typical things of young teenagers to have like mobile phones, but also tried to show that there was a different between the two mobile phones one being an old Nokia and one being a new Sony Ericsson which was trying to connote the fact there was a divide between the two characters, the girl being in a working class family and the boy being in a middle class family. Along with the other props like the computers and the radios and even the Xbox in the boy's bedroom. I think we did well to make our props suitable to the environment.

The costumes we used where appropriate for what we were trying to represent in the characters with just ordinary clothes like jeans.



We went against the usual social realist conventions in a film for the setting because we based our film more in a country side environment rather than an urban setting. We did this because we wanted it to seem like the characters are isolated in some way and lonely because there is not anyone else around them rather than being based in an urban setting which is crowded.

We tried to include as much iconography as we could. The main one was through the MSN conversation where at the beginning Sophie has a heart in Sophie’s name whilst speaking to Daniel but at the end when she says “I’m sorry Daniel” there is a broken heart in her name. We really did this is set the scene to show that she is genuinely upset about what has happened and to make the audience feel for both of the characters






Conventions of Editing

- Normally straight cuts (shows ‘real time’)
- Good continuity (doesn’t draw the audience’s attention away from the film)
- No unrealistic transitions

Did we follow the conventions of editing?

Throughout most of our film we just used the simple cut transition which shows that no time has passed and are unobvious to the viewer.



There are a few exceptions where we challenged the conventions of editing. I decided that instead of putting a cut transition I put a wipe in which was meant to clearly signify the slight moving forward of time, just to show how one person gets to a place without actually showing them getting there.
Also we used a dissolve to show the children getting older.





Even though these are not conforming to the regular conventions of social realist editing techniques they are still used in some films for example ‘Just Friends’ is a feature film which uses a dissolve similar to this. I think they worked well in our film and it was a good idea to deviate away from usual editing conventions in some parts of our film.

Throughout the film we tried to use a technique called cross editing which is when you keep switching to the same point in time to different people to see what they are up to and to see how they nearly meet.

Conventions of camera work

- Point of view shots
- Medium close ups
- Eye level shots
- No unrealistic angles
- Tries to capture facial expressions
- Simple camera movements

Did we conform to conventions of camera work?

We used a variety of shots in our film but the one we used most frequently was the medium close-up. This was so we could see the facial expressions of the characters to tell what their emotions are and their costume which tells you more about the character.








This is a split screen to show both the characters in the same shot and to show their facial expressions.

We also used some long shots which are quite common in real media products because it can be used to show how lonely and insignificant the character is feeling.





We used a few pans in our film which is only a really subtle camera movement to follow a character and is very common convention in social realist films.

Conventions of sound
- Naturalistic sounds (sound fx)
- Soft diegetic music (is any)
- dialogue

Did we stick to these conventions of sound?

We only used a few sound effects. The main one was when Sophie was texting with the bird song in the background but we did not have any dialogue at all in our short film.

The moods were done through diegetic and non diegetic music and communication through phones, computers and letters.

This defiantly does challenge the conventions of real media products because most of them rely on dialogue to tell the story rather than devices such as music and written notes.

We were inspired to do this by watching a short film called ‘Conversation Piece’ which tells the story through music instead of dialogue.

Overall I think we have challenged the conventions of real media products but have also used a lot of typical media conventions as well.




Todorov’s theory on how a film should be structured:
1. A state of Equilibrium (how the film starts)
2. A disruption of that order
3. A recognition that disorder has occurred
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
5. A return or restoration of a new equilibrium





This is the order that most feature films follow. The structure of short films can sometime be different, because of the lack of time in a short film they often end with a sad ending or a twist to keep the audience thinking rather than giving the audience the return of the equilibrium.

Our film does not end with a resolution to the problem, which when people watch it is quite a shock to them and they will be able to relate to feeling sad by the problem not being resolved because it is more representative of real life unlike the films where the problems are always solved.

Conventions of film reviews in Little White Lies magazine:

- Big picture
- 3 boxes with rounded edges, showing: the name of the film, The directors, actors and when it was released
- The first line of the text is in bold
- Follows the themes and style of the main film on the front page
- Page number
- Anticipation, enjoyment and in retrospect ratings

Did we conform to these conventions?

I think we conformed a lot to the conventions of real film reviews
- We took a snap shot of an appropriate moment in our film to put as the large picture

- For the three text boxes at the top with the title of the film, Directors, Actors and date released, I coloured them black, blue and gold. The colours that represent ‘Alice in Wonderland’
- I did this because all film reviews in the magazine ‘Little White Lies’ follow the same pattern and style throughout the magazine as the main film on the front cover (we created a rough version of the front cover just to make it clear).
- We also added extras which add to the ‘Alice in Wonderland Theme’ like the bunny ear down at the bottom next to the page number, and the car sitting just above the text.



Conventions of a film poster:
-Large picture of characters (representation of them)
- Large title
- Tag line
- setting in the background
- Reviews from magazine and newspapers
- Awards its won
- Actors names
- Names of the director

Did we stick to the conventions of film posters?

- I believe we did stick to the conventions of film posters
- The only thing that I think we slightly varied was the plain white background which we used to put even more emphasis on the representation of the relationship of the two characters.




2. How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary task?

- Along with the short film we were asked to make a film poster and film review for our short film. The aim of these two tasks was to promote the film to it's target audience and create a want to see ‘buzz’ for the short film.
- We decided that we wanted a 15 year audience age range in which to aim our short film. We finally worked out that the most appropriate audience and age group would be women from the age of 15 to 30 so we tried to attract that section of the audience through the film poster and review.

Poster




- On the poster there is a big picture of the two main characters within a white background. This will make sure that all the attention will be focused on the two characters rather than the background which is not as important and would just be distracting.

- The picture clearly shows the boy and girl touching hands which indicated to the target audience that it will be a romantic film involving those two characters.

- It also shows the boy is looking towards the camera and the girl is looking away. This will represent a dysfunctional connection between the two characters (a twist) which will make the audience want to watch and find out what happens.

- The red title also denntes love within the film, but along with the tag line "absence make the heart grow fonder" it is clear that it is only targeting females.







We looked at ‘Love Happens’ and ‘Remember Me’ film posters to get some ideas on how romantic posters are presented. We used some of the convections of this real media poster like the plain background to focus the audience onto the characters who are clearly together in the film and the clear title which instantly is set into the viewers mind.







We used symbols like the ones above to make this film poster seem more realistic and appeal more to the target audience. This has the benefit of making it looks more professional and being able to compete with other films.

‘Brown's best performance yet’ (5 stars) total film - This was the review we included from Total Film Magazine. This will appeal to the younger generation of our target audience because it’s more of a children’s magazine. Some people will argue that ‘Total Film Magazine’ is more for males and we are aiming at a female audience which is something we could have looked into if we had more time.
‘Great cast, great editing, great film’(5 stars) The Times – This is the other review we placed on the poster which is aimed at the higher and more sophisticated generation of our audience because The Times is a more serious newspaper.

- I think if we were to do the poster again we would think more about the reviews from newspapers we put on there because even though they are good reviews they are perhaps not the sort of newspapers and magazines that our target audience might read and therefore relate to.
PICTURE

- I think one other criticism of how the poster may not work with our short film is that we did not use the same style or font of writing in our poster as we did for credits in our short film.

- Even though I feel the poster worked very well in the media package for our film, there are a few things that we need to consider and reflect on.
Review



- For the main picture of the review we decided to use the main character Daniel sitting on a bench alone. This represents the constant theme throughout the film that Daniel is alone.

- He is only sitting on one side of the bench, this gives the audience some information, is he waiting for someone? Why is he sitting there looking around? Where is he?

- The audience may be able to relate to the way Daniel is feeling and will therefore create a reason in why they would want to see the film.

- The copy of the review is mainly for the older generation compared to the poster. It’s filled with text and longer words which would confuse the younger audience.

- Whereas the poster is very simple and colourful which is perfect for the younger audience.

- The copy shows some of the story line, about the children growing older and how they are ‘nearly reunited’ it manages to turn you against Sophie and feel for Daniel.

- ‘Brown's character is a subject of sympathy through out, his heart broken by Laurie’s inconceivably innocent yet pitiless character whose actions cause consequences that she does not contemplate’. This is a very meaningful sentence and can really set the scene for the readers. They can really get a good idea of the representation of some of the characters leading them to want to watch the film to learn more about them.

-Overall I think the film review and the film poster worked very well as part of the media package. They promoted the film well in giving them good reviews, followed a lot of the conventions of real media products, and gave the right amount of information in the poster about the relationship between the two characters and the genre, and the review represented the characters in detail and gave a rough outline of the narrative of the story.


3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We managed to get most of our audience feedback from making a group on Facebook and adding our friends from our target audience groups.







The main positive points we got from the audience feedback were:

- good use of diegetic and non diegetic sound
- clever dissolves which show clearly the children growing older
- the radio station is a unique idea which worked well with the mood of the short film
- clever editing when it looks like Daniel is changing in the mirror
- clear story line without dialogue
- good continuity editing through out
- good representation of characters
- liked that there was no resolution (unpredictable)

The main negative feedback we received were:

- some of the lighting was a bit dark
- you could see the camera in the reflection of the window at the end
- there was not enough time to read the MSN conversations and the letter (could be quite confusing)
- The letter was unfolded on the floor when it had been folded through the letter box


We got a lot of good feedback from our target audience on how to improve on some things and what things were good.

The favourite thing seemed to be the mirror scene. They said it brought a bit of humour into the movie at the right time and made them laugh whilst still eager to know what was going to happen.

But the biggest criticism seemed to be that because we were trying to use natural lighting in some places in the short film the scenes were darker compared to the previous shots.

I think if we where to do our film again there would be a one major thing that I would take into account. We would plan to take all of our shot during day light hours so that we do not have the same natural lighting effect problem again, where the shot seemed too dark and in some places people struggle to see what is going.


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

Camera
I learnt many things this year about a variety of digital technology and its function.

A fundamental piece of equipment we used in the making of our short film was the video camera.

In one instance, the white balance was not set correctly giving us trouble shooting the shot which was a lot more orange than it should have been, resulting in us having to re-film that section.

We also had some trouble with a camera on how to turn the ‘fade in’ off. Apart from these two minor problems I think we were very successful in using the camera
equipment.

As a result of our mistakes we decided to set the white balance regularly and worked out all the fades and unique effects of the camera just in case we encountered problems in the latter stages of filming.

Voice recorder
We used a voice recorder to record the sound of me playing the guitar.
It took me a while to work out that you had to press the record button twice to start the recording and how to listen to it when you had finished recording. By the end it became easier to use and the sound quality was very clear, I was pleased with the outcome.




Editing software
We started off by putting our production into ‘I Movie’; the programme we used last year for our foundation portfolio.

We then decided that we should transfer our footage to ‘Final Cut Pro’ because it would be more suited to the level of editing we were trying to produce and we wanted to expand our editing skills further than just using I Movie.

‘Final Cut Pro’ also offers effects that help edit the white balance (colour) of your film and the lighting. One example is the shots of Daniel sitting on the sofa, we had to change the colour of the shots.

I found ‘Final Cut Pro’ simpler to use than ‘I Movie’ and it gave us a wider choice of credits with different styles and fonts to choose from in comparison.

Also I learnt how to crop. For shots like the split screen I placed the two images of the top of each other, and the mirror scenes it came in useful to bring the two sides in to create a mirror effect.



Garage Band
For adding sound effects we used ‘Garage Band’, there where little sound effects needed in our film but the few of the bird song and the doors slamming were positioned and work well.

Even though I find ‘Garage Band’ more complicated to use than software such as Final Cut Pro I think the sound we created on Garage Band worked very well.

Blogging
Every time we had a new idea or had updated our project we would write about it on the blog to show our input into tasks.

I found blogging useful in the construction stages because it helped me plan and know what I still had left to do and there were constant updates reminding me of the deadlines that were due.

Social Networking
We used Facebook as an easy way to contact our target audience for feedback on the film. It was effective as people just had to click on a link and watch the film and gave us evaluative points that we could use to write about what we could improve and what was good about our short film.


Photoshop
I found Photoshop very hard to use because it was the first time in a few years that I had used it.

When I became accustomed to it I found it a lot easier to use and it was very helpful when creating the film poster for our short film.

Indesign

I mainly used Indesign in creating the format for the film review. Placing in the text boxes for the copy of the review. Adding in the picture and all the little things like adding the picture of the cat and the bunny ears at the bottom next to the page number.

It was easy to use.

The thing that I learnt was that you had to click on 'place' to transfer images onto the page rather than 'open'. This caused problems early on but I got used to it.