What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We asked several people in our media class to watch our rough cut, with mixed opinions:

Pros:

• Visually well done, good camera techniques used.
• Good choice of setting, captured the social realist feel.
• Costume design stuck to convention, fitting props used.

However, there were also some cons:

• Story was somewhat confusing.
• At times, certain editing techniques (like quick cuts and fades to black) felt out of place or had the audience confused at was going on.
• The audio was off, meaning that at times it was too loud or too quiet. Or that the captured sound (like wind) created a static like noise.

From this, we realised that if we didn't make these changed in time for the final cut, the film would be confusing and overall poor quality. First, we tackled the problem of the story being too confusing, as we believed that without a coherent story, the film couldn't succeed. However, we wanted to find the right balance between just handing the plot to the audience and making them think about it and each member getting something personal from the film. So we decided that adding a first person narrative from the character would help the audience understand his motives.

Next, we decided to combat the confusing editing techniques that were holding the film back. We removed all colour correction and visual effects so that we could start completely from scratch. We played back the film and noted down what people thought was confusing. The quick cuts made the pacing off, so some scenes were too quick. So we attempted to make longer cuts on shots, like in the drug deal scene, we extended some clips as much as we could.

We played back the film and individually adjusted the audio levels of each clips. We then attempted to remove the wind feedback, but it was too difficult to do on a short time scale, so the best thing we could do was try and adjust the volume of the clip so the sound of the wind wasn't too overwhelming. We couldn't replace the audio of the clip entirely as it contained bits where the actors were speaking, so we had to compromise on what we could do. Also at times, we used sound effects to override the raw diegetic sound from the clip. For instance, at one point we had to use an outdoors environment sound effect to cover up certain things, like the audio cutting too early in a clip.

After letting the audience watch our second rough cut, the only problems that remained was that the music we used was too clichéd. Finally, people kept commenting on the story still being slightly confusing, although the voice overs did help. So we decided to remove the music entirely, as it only detracted from the film. Next, we developed on the idea of adding more voice overs to add to the narration, trying to make the story as black and white as we could whilst still retaining several shades of grey.

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

First and foremost, the iMovie application software was utilised the most as it allowed us to edit our film on budget cost, coming preinstalled on the Mac. Without the increase in applications software like this at low costs, we would have had no way to edit our film. It allowed to import footage, edit the length and size of a piece of footage and also implement sound effects separate audio effects. It also allowed us to add visual filters to footage, allowing us to lower the saturation and change the exposure, creating a different stylish look to the film.

Photoshop enabled us to create our ancillary tasks, giving an image editing suite that enabled us to create a convincing movie poster and film review that could actually appear in a magazine. Once again, without these software packages, we would not have been able to achieve any of these goals. Photoshop gave us the ability to crop our images, add text and also non-destructive editing (meaning the original file won't be changed).

Web 2.0 also was utilised when producing our short film, as it allowed us to upload our rough cut of a short film to a website called Youtube, which boasts a huge membership and viewing audience. We uploaded our film to a Youtube account and allow the whole the world to view it. If given the right amount of time, we would have been able to accumulate views and also audience feedback, as Youtube allows members to comment on a video. It also gives members the option to "Like" or "Dislike" a video, which shows whether the community who watched likes or dislikes it overall.

Web 2.0 also helped in the research phase of our product, as we could research films online through sites such as IndieMovies, which allows viewers to watch public made films. It also allowed us to look at directors websites, an example being Shane Meadows (the director of This Is England), which had interviews with the director on directing films like This Is England, which gave us an insight on how he wrote the script for This Is England.

The biggest utilisation of Web 2.0 however, was the use of Blogger, which gave us the ability to present our work in a digital format instead of on paper. This gave us the opportunity to follow each others 'blogs' and keep up to date about film schedules and group activity. We could sites like Scribd and SlideShare, which enables users to upload presentations and word processor documents to their website. It also has the feature of being able to 'embed' documents on websites. For us, this meant that we could place a SlideShare document on our Blogger and allow people to view it. It also allowed interactivity on our blog as these embedded documents allow users to interact with the document, like giving it a rating and sharing it.

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

For our ancillary tasks, we chose to do a film review and a movie poster.

The movie poster was designed around the idea that it had to portray core elements and themes of the short film to the audience at first glance. So we designed the poster with the ideas of grittiness and dark themes in mind throughout. We washed out the colours from the initial photo of the character to emphasise the seriousness of the story, and also so that people could understand the tone of the story just from looking at the poster. The idea behind this was that we wanted the poster to really demonstrate a snap shot view of the story so that the desired audience could recognise it as a social realism piece. The picture of the character is showing his head is down and looking at the floor. By hiding his face, we wanted to create an element of mystery about the character, to intrigue people to his story. We focussed the poster on the main character of the film wearing his costume, so the audience (when watching the film) could recognise the character from the poster.

The way we linked all three of our products was that we had the main character placed on each product. This way the audience would be able to recognise the film from just seeing the character in his familiar costume.

Ancillary task comparison

View more presentations from Alex_Thorne_Media.

To get a review like the one above, we would have aimed to try and get interviews of the director and cast and also press releases to get the name of the film out. Also, trying to get the film in a film festival. As our film is in digital format, we would also be able to upload the film to online competitions. Through this we would aim to have a review done to further the exposure of the film. This way we would hope that the genre would come through, attracting the target audience.

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

In our short film, we have used many conventions in order to portray a credible looking social realist film. We have used these conventions in several areas, such as what shot types we have used, the mise en scene, editing and the narrative.

In terms of shot types, we used a handheld camera, as it was a recurring theme in social realist films we researched. In this sense, we wanted .We took into account that social realist films are dominantly character driven, so we incorporated close ups to show the reactions on characters' faces. We also utilised tracking shots or panning shots so the camera was focused on the character. This was because it is essential in social realism that the audience make a connection with the main protagonist (or in this case anti-hero), so when storyboarding we made sure that the character achieved a strong amount of exposure.

Another aspect we focused on was the exposure of the environment around each character. In social realism the environment is another key aspect, as it sets the tone for the piece early on, which will determine the overall feel. An example of this would in London to Brighton, the opening scene takes place in a dirty, unkempt public toilet. This immediately sets the feel and tone of the scene as being gritty and quite dark.

                                           London to Brighton opening shot


Through this, we decided that the environment was important as well as the character focus, so we incorporated several establishing shots at the beginning of a new scene.


In terms of mise en scene, we used natural lighting without the aid of artificial light social realist films, such as Fish Tank and London to Brighton, used natural lighting to convey a sort of realism. We felt that artificial lighting would only distract the audience or even make the scene look worse.

Natural lighting from Fish Tank

Common conventions of social realist films in terms of costumes is that they are often just regular clothing trends, to recreate the style of the film's time period. This is done as social realism focuses on the people, so only regular clothing is needed, otherwise it would detract from the realism. To make our film convincing, we had to adopt this trend, otherwise it have felt out of place.

When editing our product, we detracted from the classic style of social realism, which would normally involve not adding any colour correction, special or visual effects. In our film, we put a bleach bypass effect over each shot, to add a stylised look to the film, but also to make it seem more gritty and serious by removing some of the colour from each shot. In this sense, we challenged this convention so that we could add a type of uniqueness to our film. Considering our narrative wasn't in chronological order, it also meant that we had to edit certain parts differently (like adding different colour filters to shots) so that people could understand that it was either in the future or that the scene was in the past.

When working on the narrative for our film, we decided that we wanted to keep many conventions and theme from social realism (drugs, violence and anti-social behaviour amongst youth) and incorporate them into our film. We felt this way as we believed that if these themes were taken away, it would ruin the illusion of modern day social realism.

Example of drug reference

In social realism, the audience is often left to wonder why characters behave in such a way, so they hold the moral high ground. Also, as social realism is centred on crime a majority of the time, it is up to the audience as to whether a character is actually a protagonist or antagonist. This featured heavily in our film, as we believed it added another layer to the film's plot, and encouraged the audience to think as to whether the character (our anti-hero) is actually a morally strong person and deserves the audience's sympathy. We wanted the audience to be more than just a passive viewer, to break the Hypodermic syringe theory (where the producers put the messages in the film, the audience passively take it in).