OUR PRODUCTS:
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of real media products?
Narrative Conventions
Our short film, 'SOUP' uses parallel editing to indicate that there are two story lines running simultaneously. The first shows a psychotic woman cutting up fleshy remains and looking shifty in varying angles, while the other shows a younger girl out trick or treating. Parallel editing was used effectively here to give the impression that these two lives were somehow linked, and the enigma and anticipation of it all is wondering when they will meet. Due to our complex editing, we chose to stick to a chronological sequence so we don't confuse our audience.
This editing technique was also used in the short film 'Never Forget' - a 2 minute film that shows a phone call between two characters. The paths are crossed when the male lead jumps to his death just in front of her. We originally looked at this short in the beginning of the year, and were clearly inspired to follow a similar editing technique.
Characterisation
In order to maintain simplicity in our film, we chose to avoid character names - we deemed this information unnecessary to the development of the film. We also chose to keep the relationships between the characters fairly broad to leave mystery in the plot line. The aim was for the audience to question how these character's paths have crossed, and more importantly WHY these paths have crossed.
Levi-Strauss devised a theory in the early 1900s that suggested the new term 'binary oppositions' - he theorised that stories deal with opposition to create interest. Humans also naturally categorise to keep in order. The most commonly used opposition in film would be 'Good/Evil' - a notable example would be Harry Potter's portrayal of Harry Potter and Voldemort's relationship.
We can apply this theory to our film as we deal with 'Innocence/Corruption', and 'Good/Evil' relationships between characters. These become distinctive personality traits and add to the appeal of our film.
Genre Conventions
When researching short films, we found that a lot of films don't maintain a single genre; some not even be categorised at all (e.g. 'Mixtape' & 'BITCH') As we began planning our own short, we realised that our genre was leaning towards thriller more than anything. However, we also wanted a fairly universal audience, and didn't want to restrict our age rating too much if our film were to be professionally released. To suggest the genre, more than making it overly explicit, we;
- Used low lighting to cast shadows, restrict the narrative and keep the film enigmatic.
- Music choices had to fit the plot development. We chose to use a mix of melancholy tones and distorted piano tracks to create a twisted world in which the characters live in.
- Themes within the film are tailed for a mature audience; dealing with mutilation of a dead person and the corruption of younger children would not suit those in a primary education.
In our film, we followed Altman's theory on Syntactic codes by leaving a cliff hanger at the end, which is a typical narrative ending of short films. Another example of cliff hangers in shorts would be 'Joyride' (1995) - its clear that the character has been electrocuted near the end, but the screen cuts to black. This cut to black could be used to make the film easier to produce - by showing the character's death, there would be a lot more effort to make the death seem 'realistic'. It's best to leave the audience to infer a death. It's also a lot less gory to present death in this way. We also applied this to our film by not presenting any particular 'death' in our film. This is called restricted narrative.
Staying with the themes of distortion and living in a dystopian society, we felt we should reflect our choices in our camera work. To improve from our last film, 'Elijah' which was fairly static in filming, we made it our priority to film various angles, from various heights and even managed to experiment with low angle, canted shots. (Figure 1.)
As well as using standard college cameras, we experimented with an underwater camera. The experiment worked so well that we used the footage in our final film, then used a red filter to create a bloody wash. We made a blog post documenting our experimentation here. We originally intended in using an underwater shot to start the film, but decided against it when it came to day 1 of filming.
Basic Filming
While trying to experiment and push the boundaries with filming, we also ensured that we didn't forget the basics of continuity editing. For example, the 180 degree rule is practised in the kitchen:
In these two screenshots, it shows that we are filming from either side of the character. On first glance, it would appear that we have broken the 180 degree rule - so, I created this diagram to demonstrate how we filmed:
- The soup stirring/cooking scene was filmed at point A, the blender scene was filmed at point B.
- The red crosses represent where the camera was positioned.
- The red dots represent the degree of separation - if we were to cross this line when filming, continuity would be off. We could work anywhere within the left side of the dots.
It's also good to consider eye-line-matches when dealing with dialogue and any sort of communication. As I've stated previously, we avoided dialogue as much as we could.
Isobel was the only character that really had to deal with eye line matches; the first being the trick or treat scene. The woman opens the door and then steps out of frame, so the audience are made aware of another character being involved. Isobel maintains eye sight and makes the scene believable.
The second example is when the soup is rested in front of Isobel. In a previous shot, it's clear that Kierah has placed the soup down. Isobel's look up to the camera is (almost like gaining clarification that she can eat). With this particular angle, it would be impossible to fit Kierah in as Isobel is positioned the far left of the screen. Again, we had Kierah stand in the same position she was in when she placed the soup to ensure that Isobel maintained eye-sight to a correct degree.
We also used a (attempted to use) Match-on-Action in our film. This was when the two innocent characters are locked out.
As Isobel reaches to give the keys to me, we switch camera angles. To ensure this looks like a continuous shot, we would have to make sure both actors use the same hand for the exchange and the two are positioned in the same spot.
However, on review, I've realised my massive error... in figure one, I reach out with my right hand. In figure 2, I'm clearly clenching my left hand. How this got past us after numerous hours of filming, editing, and currently on hour 8 of this evaluation, is completely beyond me. If this film were professionally released, this type of error would have been fixed very early on.
Editing/Post production
For the majority of our shots, we kept to using straight cuts as they are most common in cinematography. However, we did use a dissolve in our film to manipulate space. In Figure 3. (pictured to the left), we used 2 separate shots of the moon to create this continuous shot. As we pointed the camera to the moon, the shot went horribly out of focus - but this helped us create a graphic match. We matched up the other shot of us moving away from the moon, dissolved the transition and created this successful edit! This is a technique I had not personally seen in film before, so feel that this challenges real media products.
Our editing process was also rushed unlike real media products - juggling filming and editing the film, as well as considering a film poster and creating a review is unrealistic of the real world. The tasks all had to be simplified.
We also were experimental in our use of 'cut to black' - we felt this was beneficial as we were constantly cutting between two scenes and didn't want intersperse or confuse. This challenges the conventions of typical short films, as many use straight cuts. I have yet to see a short film that uses this technique as freely as we did.
We also were experimental in our use of 'cut to black' - we felt this was beneficial as we were constantly cutting between two scenes and didn't want intersperse or confuse. This challenges the conventions of typical short films, as many use straight cuts. I have yet to see a short film that uses this technique as freely as we did.
Sound
Our downfall when producing 'Elijah' was our lack of script/dialogue - we realised there was no real structure and didn't really know what we wanted to achieve. When researching short films, we had discovered 'Black Hole' - a short film that shows a working class male stuck in a late night shift at the office who lets interest get the better of him. The most notable feature in the construction of this film was the lack of dialogue - the film actually didn't have any dialogue. This open our eyes to possibility of limiting our dialogue; we realised there was too much context needed in our film to completely irradiate any speech, but this was reassuring. However, we still did not write a script - this is a skill we have yet to perfect in our film making experience.
When we it came to filming our product, we decided to challenge ourselves by using makeshift 'boom mics' to record the audio. This proved to be a challenge as a lot of our sound files were ruined due to the microphones not being set up properly - luckily, none of our dialogue had been affected.
Due to prior negotiations with another group in the college, we were unable to use the boom mic for our second day of filming. On the day of filming we also realised we didn't have a sound recorder at all, so we had to compromise for certain foleys. Instead, we used an iPhone 6 to obtain the sound we needed - although this would never be allowed with real media products, it was suitable for our situation. The end results show that the sound wasn't even distinguishable from the sound recorded on the mic - even though the kbps quality was considerably lower. I believe we challenged real media products for this reason.
When constructing our sound, and utilizing the lack of dialogue, we went to Incomepetch.com to obtain royalty-free music. It is vital, when working on a low-budget film, to obtain royalty-free music - if any music in our film were to be officially released through a label, our short could come under fire for legal action. We created a blog post documenting our findings here.
When it came to our final edit, we ended up using two of the sound files we had documented. Each had the conventions needed to fit the genre; each had eerie undertones and distorted piano sounds to make the audience uncomfortable.
'Dreams Become Real' - this sound file had a really sad feel about it, so we decided to use it in our opening titles. Nothing climactic had happened prior to this in our film, so this piano track was a nice compromise and to neutralise the audience's opinions on what was happening.
'Piece for Disaffected Piano Two' - this sound file is the most distorted sound we used. It's quite climactic when cut in the right places and certain notes drag on more than other higher notes. This was perfect for the end of our film, and builing to the reveal.
'Unease' - Much like 'Piece for Disaffected Piano Two', this sound file as very distorted and sounded very angry. This worked great for transitions and when the screen keeps cutting to black. We did find we had to cut this track quite short as it got very loud and un-useable.
MeS was very important in our film, as our film relied heavily around context and we had filmed over multiple days, so the need for continuity was necessary.
THE BOWL
The film is constructed around the bowl of soup; the bowl is seen in the film, film poster and review. It was important that we stressed the importance of the bowl as it would be included in the climax of the film's ending. We made sure to use the same bowl over the two days of filming for continuity reasons (even though our very first shot on the second day was the wrong bowl - quickly corrected!)
When researching other short films, it was made apparent that other shorts like to focus on common objects and make a story around them. During my research, I analysed films such as 'Fumer Tue' - a French short that translates to 'Smoking Kills'; the film poster had a picture of a cigarette.
THE EYEBALL
The eyeball - and questionably the most important prop in our film, was deemed near impossible. Our original aim for our film was to have this realistic eyeball float to the top of a very thick soup - but we had to compromise.
After concluding day 1 of filming and we realised we still didn't have access to an eyeball. We went through multiple ideas (Obtaining an animal's eyeball at the offal stand in Sainsburys, buying a glass eye on eBay etc.) - eventually we settled for a clay painted eyeball, created on the day of filming. It actually worked quite well!
The main issue was that, when clay dries, the material becomes quite heavy - we had to accept that this eyeball wasn't going to float. Again, we brainstormed and thought we could drop the eyeball in the soup out of frame then reverse the footage in editing - this didn't work. Instead, we had our actor use a spoon and find the eyeball when she goes for her first mouthful of soup. We created a blog post here, documenting our various methods of eyeball reveals
THE COSTUMES
When it came to piecing our actors to characters, and eventually to costumes, we realised our budget and compromised again. We chose to dress our characters in costumes that were accessible and didn't look out of the norm (as that's what we wanted to achieve). We wrote a blog post explaining our thought process in more detail.
Kierah, the psychotic chef, is in a home environment for the entirety of her screen time - so we needed to have something comfortable and causal. We decided to used my old flannel in case it was ruined in the process, and wasn't an article of clothing that Kierah already owned (this is to separate the actor from the character).
Isobel, the innocent trick-or-treat'or, had to be some form of costume. She was the easiest character to separate from actor. Luckily, we had filmed not long after Halloween had concluded, so Isobel had access to multiple costumes from her own house. Isobel took pride in her outfit and even helped us to remember exactly how she wore each article of clothing (noting that her wig had come lose from the hat originally, and in a previous shot, she didn't even have the hat near her).
Alex, the adult eye to Isobel, dressed up a bit more the actor usually would (he he he). Usually, my choice of style in very laid back, a jumper, and my staple black jeans. Instead, I had used an old coat jacket, accompanied it with a white shirt/burgundy jumper combo to create a finished look. I also had to bad;y torment myself from not getting an overdue a haircut, and not being able to due to continuity reasons!
In case we forgot how each character dressed, we made sure to document how each character looked at the end of the day 1 filming.
THE LIGHTING
Prior to us even planning our film, Holly and I decided to do a short lighting course as we were critical of our lighting in our film opening. We documented that as well - click here.
We learnt that lighting can affect character perception and alter the setting they're in entirely.
So which forms of lighting did we use?
We decided to use a lot of low key lighting for Kierah; to cast a shadow over her personality traits and to restrict the audience on their knowledge of the character. We did slightly alter the lighting compared to the test shot on the left; instead, we back lit Kierah and used secondary lighting to highlight her cheeks. I really like this restricted CU shot because of the harsh lighting on her hand that contrasts the shadows on the actor's face.
For this ECU shot of Kierah, we decided to use a light below her face. When we were testing lighting, I was always critical of this lighting as it always casts really harsh shadows under the eyes. However, being in a home area (rather than studio background), and using filters on the lights gave this much more natural light and coloured the shot nicely. I also feel that this was a very successful shot - especially because we weren't entirely sure where to use it until editing.
This 2-S wasn't as successful, mainly because we aren't as experienced with filming at night. However, we did experiment and looked at highlighting the character's face to indicate some form of danger (The end result showed a grainy, and very dark shot). In our test lighting shots, we had originally used two lights, but due to circumstances with people in our group, we could only film with one light. My original notes also state that it is a very emotive shot, and should highlight as much.
This is one of our final shots, a CU of Isobel on the golden mean, looking over her shoulder. We really needed to see all of her face for this look of innocence to highlight the binary oppositions in our short. To achieve this shot, we used a single light right next to the camera on a very low setting. The positioning of the actor also shows the ominous bowl as well - this is also a very successful shot.
Themes & Issues
When creating the plot of our film, it was made apparent that we would be dealing with shocking. maybe controversial themes.
In our short, we:
- Teased the idea of murder by making our audience question where this eyeball came from, and who or what this chopped up meat in the blender is from.
- Use the method of mutilation - Kierah is shown chopping up body parts on camera. To the wrong audience, this could come across as fairly distressing.
- Mistrust is most evident when the bond between characters is revealed. The older character taking the younger girl trick or treating is shown entering the house and asking questions the establish a form of trust. The trust is then ruined when an eyeball is shown in the younger character's food.
- The innocence of children had also been teased with the younger character trick-or-treating, and happily expecting dinner when she gets in. The innocence has then been corrupted by what she's seen.
- Childhood nostalgia is also teased; with a child going out trick-or-treating, and the use of alphabet spaghetti in the film and film poster.
Ancillary Task 1 - Film Poster
To create our film poster, we chose to research two short films and two feature lengths. In doing this, we found the features that distinguish the two and what qualities I could use in my own interpretation. To do this, I looked at 'Fumer Tue', 'Superhero', 'Shutter Island', 'Black Swan'.
From our research, we learnt about the use of: Billing Blocks (and the font used), Film Festivals, including Star names/Main actors and how to make our film poster look professional.
To create our poster, I began with a rough idea in my head and worked off it on impulse - no planning, and produced something in no more than 20 minutes. I felt this was an appropriate starting point as I already had experience in using Photoshop, and wanted to exercise my skills at first.
(Pictured to the left).
Design wise, there was nothing 'wrong' with is per-say. But when personally reviewing it, I felt there were multiple things missing. I decided that:
- There wasn't enough conventions to suggest the thriller genre.
- The titling was tacky, and didn't show any sign of branding
- The film was called 'Soup', but the only references to soup in the poster was the spoon, and the alphabet spaghetti border.
I had also created another poster to indicate how 'extreme' I wanted the poster to come across. Where this poster lacked enigma, my second design suggested that the film was a horror. (See pictured below)
This poster I later nicknamed 'blood bath' would be effective for a slash horror. I used this as a learning process.
I then found the pictures we had taken during filming and realised that they would be great for the film poster. This is the first image I started with:
I chose this image because:
- It was the highest quality of the pictures we took
- There was a lot of blank space to work around
- The majority of the colours are near neutral, so it was easy to layer text on top
- I had to do very little editing to create a professional looking poster
- All I had to do was rotate, crop the image slightly, then rescale it to A3.
This was my initial design idea (pictured to the left):
- I changed the colour of the soup to have more red tones; this is to suggest blood
- I also changed the contrast and added some more light reflection. This makes the colours look a lot richer.
- I softened the background slightly to make the subject more important.
- I also made sure to centre the spoon as well for the same reason.
It was clear (personally and through audience feedback), that this was the stronger poster. However, it was suggested to me that I should have something really subtle to foreshadow the end of the film without ruining the plot. Originally intended to be an overly sarcastic edit turned out to be quite effective and what came to be my final submission for the film poster.
The second draft includes a very faint eyeball, hiding behind the shadow of the spoon.
Now let's review!Titling
This poster design was much better than the original draft, mainly because of titling choices. From my poster research, and short film research, I have learnt the importance of branding, and the use of continuity between our products. Here are some other examples of branding between film produce:
'Monsters Inc.' was a hit upon its original release - so much so, that even the stand alone 'M' with an eyeball could be easily recognised by a mass audience
'Superhero' is an independently released short film, and would not be recognised with it's own font choices, but their font is continued between the film credits and poster.
We took this into account and used our own branding technique:
Name of Actors
When it came to using actor names, we decided to use 'the main three' actors: Kierah, Isobel and Alex. With feature length films, many film posters include well known celebrities in the film to give the film star power. For example, 'Black Swan' includes Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassle and Mila Kunis - these are well known to the public and add to the overall appeal of the film. Obviously we were working on a budget, five minute short, so this was completely out of our reach.
The actor names were also the first typed font on the poster. I chose to use 'Agency FB' as it's fairly bold, and the white contrasts nicely against the darker background. Just to ensure that the font didn't get lost, I also applied a drop shadow. These names are centred directly under the main image so the audience's attention is diverted.
Main features & Reasoning
The spoon was chosen as a main feature of the poster as it is within the same semantics of Soup. We could have chosen to have the soup 'Soup' across a bloody knife, but then too much of the plot would be suggested.
The image (pictured right) was our original inspiration. We liked the idea of a message being hidden within the food, but were worried that the audience would be critical on the fact that technically alphabet spaghetti isn't technically 'Soup'. We eventually looked past this, and decided to stick with our instincts.
Tagline
On the second draft for my poster, I included the tag line "Dinner's Ready!". Personally, I liked the line; but due to my second draft being entirely scraped, I decided against it.
Tag lines can be very effective for short films as they can make the film memorable. The line is also a commonly heard phrase; if the film were professionally released, it could gain a cult following for comedic interpretations.
Of my research, I had found that 'Superhero' and 'Shutter Island' include taglines:
SUPERHERO: 'You don't need superpowers to be a hero' - this line works as it works in conjunction with the main image. The two characters in the poster look like two every day people, but the older one has a large cape. From this, we can also infer that they are normal people and that the two help each other through their struggles. Already, I have got a basic understanding of the plot, but it still restricts the problems that they two face, which then makes me interested in watching.
SHUTTER ISLAND: 'Some places never let you go.' - this tag line works in conjunction with the smaller image, and the title of the film. From this line, I can infer that the island shown is the place that 'never let[s] you go'. The word 'shutter' has connotations of restriction, being trapped, or being part of a gated community. With the word 'you', we can infer that the person who is trapped on this island will be the main star advertised on the poster. With the tagline, images and star's image plastered on the poster, the interest and likeability is increased.
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| Click here |
Billing Block
Billing Blocks are a new concept to me this year; it's something I've always been aware of, but didn't know they had a name or a specific font.
Typing in 'billing block thriller' on Google Images shows a consistent pattern of white font against a black background. (See image to the left)
I challenged these conventions by using a white font on top of an image.
The font used for the majority of credit blocks are: 'Bee Two', 'Univers 39 UltraCondensed Thin' and 'Triple Condensed Gothic Light'. The font I used is a free font named 'Credit Block', which turned out to be a near identical alternative.
I also decided to use a considerably shorter billing block than many other films - mainly due to the small production team we had, but too much text would over crowd the poster.
Reviews and Ratings
When creating the poster, I decided to leave out including reviews and ratings for multiple reasons:
1) To conform with other short film posters. I had realised that not many short film posters included reviews or ratings as the majority are independently released - therefore, not even being considered for professional review.
2) From a design perspective, I couldn't fit them in anywhere. I could have included some festival reefs to the sides of the spoon, but then the poster would look over crowded.
3) No matter what reviews I use, they would come across as biased!
Ancillary Task 2 -LWL Review
For our film review, we based our design off of the 'Little White Lies' magazine template. The template is consistent between releases, and any differences are minor. As we went into this task with very little to no knowledge on 'Little White Lies', we did some independent research to find out what the company do. You can read my own research at these three links: HERE | HERE | HERE
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| Full scale image can be found here |
I found that the magazine is tailored to males between 25 and 35, with a creative or visual artistic background. The demographic is 'slightly-older-than-students' as each magazine sells for £6 and offers a subscription package at a discounted price. The magazine is a collectable and is widely accessible in shops such as WHSmiths
Dimensions
When creating our review, it was important that followed the conventions down to the dimensions of their book release.
- Each page review is 196mm x 245mm.
- Each column of text is 52.4mm wide, the height can vary depending on the density of text.
- There are typically only ever 3 columns of text in each review.
- On the ratings at the end, a 3px line is used to differentiate the different text boxes.
Picture
Each review includes a featured screen shot from the film. The image will nearly always include a character of some sort, and will nearly always be the star or main character of the film.
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| Examples of real 'Little White Lies' reviews - Google images. |
The images will never be bevelled, and will always be 168mm wide. The height may vary due to screen resolution and the size of the text used. Typically, the image will take up 40% of the page.
Little White Lies have a very particular style when writing. Each review is approximately 550 words - so a lot has to be said in a limited time. Each review will also use 5-7 paragraphs to break the review up into very particular sections. From my 'Little White Lies' research, I created a small conclusion on what should be included:
"Things I have learned:
- Start with contexts, whether discussing historical, social, literary etc. Why has this film been made? What's the purpose? Has it got a background story? Discussion on context could last a couple of paragraphs.
- Discussion of characters don't start until at least the third paragraph before any mentions of the plot line are revealed. 3rd Paragraph usually introduces the reader to something, whether it is the character's back story or where they are positioned.
- The 4th paragraph will show the plot development
- Paragraph 5 is the indication on whether the author favoured the film or not - almost as though they are evaluating the film and all visual aspects. " - [Extract of a blog post]
Historical/Social/Literary context is included to give a back-story on the plot of the film.
What's the point of this? - The audience reading the review may have no knowledge of the film, but there may be shared knowledge on historical/social/literary aspects of the film - therefore, appealing to the reader. This could help sell the film.
Characterisation is key when writing a review.
Why is this? - Even the worst films to ever be released includes at least one memorable characters. Some horribly bad films include characters which in turn makes the film enjoyable. It's important for the person reviewing the film to build a character profile for one or two enjoyable personas - no matter how short the film!
Plot line makes the majority of the review.
Does that ruin the review? - Much like characterisation, it's important to SELL the film when reviewing it (even if the review ultimately disfavours it). The review must include a lot of the plot, but maintain from spoiling anything big. The audience want to know if they will be bored while watching this film. The audience want to know if other people were gripped into the plot.
As well as plot line, plot development is just as important.
Is too much being included? - Plot development can sometimes be the golden parts of the film. In many feature films, this is where characters may use that big, memorable line that everyone quotes. Straight away I think of Pulp Fiction's character, Butch: "Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead." There's no harm in including this line!
The author always indicates whether they favoured the film at the end.
Why is this significant? - If you've made it that far into the review, would you want to know if the person writing actually liked the film or not? This could be the making or breaking point for any film review - if these film professionals don't like your film, you may be in trouble.
Our Film review
- Our exact page dimensions were 196mm x 245mm.
- Each column is 52.4mm wide (with varying heights)
- We included the 3px lines between each rating
- Each font is an exact or very similar font to those used in Little White Lies.
- We used an appropriate image that features one of the main characters in an important scene.
- Our word count was 418, so it was slightly shorter than regular reviews. However, our film is a short, compared to the regular feature lengths that are reviewed.
- We include back story on Isobel and Kierah's acting careers, and AleMegHol production's history
- Mentioned plot line and plot development, while avoiding the big eyeball reveal at the end
- Gave a mixed review, and mentioned a fake reviewer's personal favouring at the end.
"It may not be the top thriller you were expecting, but these directors are a team to watch."
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of main product and ancillary texts proved to be a success due to appraisal we have received from our peers and teachers. We have created a portfolio that I believe would be a success in a commercial context, and have created a film suitable for our target audience. I personally feel that we have created this 'AleMegHol' brand from nothing, and our marketing skills have improved drastically over the past six months. In terms of commercial success, our short film has already accumulated more views that our previous two filming tasks.
Film & Poster
One of the marketing techniques I have learnt about over the past six months is the use of branding, and consistency over multiple products. We began by using a consistent title that would appeal to our audience.
Our 'Soup' title was constructed using a prop - by using alphabet spaghetti, we are appealing to a nostalgic audience, and being relevant in our choices. We also feel that our unique choice would make the title recognisable and memorable.
I also feel that part of our appeal is the simplistic storyline. The story comes across as well thought out and executed well, without having to be pretentious or leaving the audience confused by the end. Again, this makes our film memorable and in turn, makes the audience more likely to share their experiences with it.
A clear genre had also been set between film and poster with conventions suggesting the plot from very early on. For the poster, the eyeball is a clear indicator, as well as the ominous red tinge to the soup. As for the film, a mix of desaturated colour, suggestive shadows and questionable music all add to the Thriller experience.
During the construction of our poster, it had always been clear to us that we were creating an independently released short - as opposed to the mainstream feature lengths we were initially reviewing. By creating a poster than features no star character images, we are challenging ourselves as we have no distributors backing us. However, many indie short films do go on to become very successful in their own realm through festivals.
Short Film Festivals
Festivals would be the most obvious place for us to turn if we wanted to create a larger audience for ourselves; having already shared our finished product on a public platform like YouTube. The benefits of Festivals would be a certified audience, and plenty of critics to review/analyse our film. Festivals are also a good way to get a name out there into the creative space, and to make ourselves known.
We would also benefit greatly at festivals as short film posters have only recently been made. Where many older, 'traditional' film producers focus mainly on their film - we have the benefit of having added advertisement.
Following up from presenting our film at a film festival, we would stand in the running for being presented awards for certain aspects of our creative process.
These reefs are officially given out, and could be later edited into our film poster. The reefs are a clear success indicator, and would also benefit us in the long run of our marketing technique.
Social Media
At our current ages, we are at an advantage in how far the world has come in terms of technology, the internet, and the construction of social media. Social Media is a great way for us to advertise our products to a mass audience. Each of us have our own 'online profiles', with thousands of people logging on everyday to see what we have to say - meaning that we have a great platform to advertise. Our film poster is visually appealing, and would be stand out on websites such as 'Twitter' where up approximately 80% of the social timeline is entirely text based. This would accumulate interest, and ultimately result in more views. The result speak for themselves; as we had all advertised our final product on Twitter, and our views have considerably increased.
Where websites such as Twitter and Facebook have very wide demographics - having elements that appeal to younger audiences (E.g. gaming services, instant messaging), and older generations (E.g. Social aspect, picture sharing). New social media websites are often being made to compete with these social giants, and Instagram seems to be the most successful in it's era. The picture sharing service appeals mainly to those aged 15-25 (Perfectly in line with our own target audience). Sharing our poster, or screenshots from the film could greatly benefit us.
The Review
The Review we created was difficult, as we had to write it from an outsiders perspective. It was an excellent lesson into how a review can alter the audience's views and opinions on a film, without even watching it.
Every budgeted film would have gained some form of review - whether that being an official Metacritic rating, or constructive comments through a blog, much like ours. From this, we have learnt that any form of publicity is good publicity. If our film were to be reviewed as one of the best films of the year, I'm sure many people with jump at the idea of watching it. In comparison, even if the film were reviewed as one of the worst; many people would want to watch it as well to form their own opinion. The most important thing is that our film is being publicized for free, and it's all out of the producer's hands by the point.
For our own review, we decided to base our template around the 'Little White Lies' film magazine - a bimonthly release that features a variety of films, spanning all genres, budgets and countries. Considering the non-specific specification displayed, I feel that we would most likely reach out to LWL if we were interested in releasing the film professionally.
3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Transcript
When creating our short film, we constantly stressed our target audience of males aged 15-25. We took this into consideration when it came to gaining audience feedback through the various stages of the construction period.
In our early stages, we had issues with our plot line, and couldn't decide on a finalised plot between the group. We decided to reach out to a mass audience to see which plot line they preferred. Having already typed out a detailed story, an alternative blog post was made with a very different story, genre, and entirely new audience. For this reason, we reached out to as many people as we could to gain a general idea of what the public wanted to see. To do this, we used SurveyMonkey to present both ideas, then finished with a one question survey.
*Insert SurveyMonkey screenshot*
Once the survey had been created, we reached out to friends and family, while also asking our online audience to voice their opinion.
*Insert Facebook post*
One thing I had considered about asking Facebook friends is the possibility of biased results. If we were to redo this Survey, I might suggest that we avoid Facebook for this reason - simply because it's a very open forum, made of people we know personally.
*Insert Twitter post*
We had benefited greatly by asking those on Twitter for their feedback as the three of us have a combined following of 11,000 people (with some overlap due to mutual followings) - addressing this kind of audience meant that we were receiving feedback across the globe. With results coming from across the UK, France, Canada and America; we were very happy with the feedback we were receiving. All in all, we had 83 people contribute towards the Survey.
*Insert blog post*
We had also posted the survey to our blog as a reference of our progress, but to also reach out to other media students who may be following our posts.
We then gained audience feedback during the post-production stage of our film. For this, we recorded conversations with me and Holly in the editing suite. In our conversations, we asked other A2 Media students on two sections we weren't sure about. By asking other Media students at our level, they were able to understand what was trying to be achieved, and understood the importance of being filmed while they spoke.For this, we reached out to Kayla and Claire for a section of our film to see if they could hear a particular sound file we had inserted.
*Insert Audience Feedback 1*
For those who could not hear it either, we had used a very quiet version of the 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Here!' theme song. This was to add to the home setting the woman at the door was living in, and to fill in any silence between speech. Ultimately, they could not hear the theme song. Usually, we would react towards this - either by removing the sound file entirely, or just by making the soundtrack louder. We decided to keep the file in as we some previous problems with the recording of our audio - using the soundtrack bridged any cuts in audio and made the production a lot smoother. It's also a fun easter egg for our group to reflect on.
Next, we reached out to Ella for feedback on visuals in our film. Before filming, we had asked Ella to look out for anything that goes against the continuity, and if the footage ran smoothly.
*Insert Audience Feedback 2*
From Ella's feedback, we reacted to the comments made, beginning with the slow motion section. We decided to reduce the slow motion to a near fraction of the original pace - we liked the idea of dragging out Isobel's action of stirring the soup, but could agree that the slow motion was very obvious and distracted the audience. We also appreciate Ella's comments on the cuts to black - she agrees that they help to build suspense and it also made it obvious "something was coming". From an analytical point, Ella had de-constructed our short film perfectly - from this, we can assume we had edited this sequence well.
Our main question to Ella was whether it was clear that Isobel was looking off camera towards Kierah (the killer Chef) - and it appears that this was achieved. The clip was never intentionally filmed, but seemed to work in our favour.
Finally, when creating out short film poster, I managed to receive some audience feedback from my A2 Media class. In one of our lessons, my teacher had commented that he felt something was missing from my poster. He suggested that there should be another image included that would suggest the plot line without ruining anything. Rather sarcastically, I commented that I should edit an eyeball into the soup - but it actually turned out really good. My teacher had then commented that the eyeball should be edited slightly larger as it wasn't visible at first glance. At this point, I had disagreed - so reached out to others in my class for an opinion. I simply asked them to look at my Photoshop document and describe what they saw. Sure enough, the majority saw the eyeball straight away. They had agreed that the eyeball helped the poster all together, but making it any bigger would make it too obvious, and unrealistic. At the time, I didn't think to record this conversation - but it would be something to consider if I was to redo the course, and for future reference. However, I did react to the comments made, and decided to keep the new addition to the final poster. By asking other media students, I had reached out to other students with a creative eye, so knew that the feedback would be constructive.
When collecting audience feedback, it's always important to consider multiple questions, such as:
Did we react to the comments made by the audience? From my own experiences, I have realised that not all feedback has to affect the products - mainly because we can't please every last person in the world. Feedback is more of a suggestion, rather than fact.
It's also important to question how information was collected, and who collected it. If the short we had produced was made on a larger scale, the producers would not be the ones to gather feedback. One of the cons of us gaining feedback is the possibility of bias - family and friends may be lenient to one idea because they know the person better. To avoid this, I personally asked my family to vote in our 'Plot poll' on SurveyMonkey first, then I would reveal which was the original plot, and which was the new. We also live in a very digital age, where we can utilize websites such as SurveyMonkey - gaining feedback from places such as Calgary, Canada and Texas, America would be impossible without the internet. We had also sent out the SurveyMonkey link via. text message and social media - which again, is something only made possible recently.
The internet has also made it possible for us to document our feedback better - by running a blog, we were able to constantly update those who follow us on exactly where we were in the production. We had also set up a YouTube channel in conjunction with Blogger to bring footage from days of filming, audience feedback conversations and the final piece. Both Blogger and YouTube offer comment sections for feedback and reviews. We had our media teacher constantly give us feedback on how to improve our products, and our blog posts.
*Insert blog comment examples*
From this, we were able to constantly improve. I've learnt that it's very easy to get in communication, and gain a professional review through mediums such as YouTube and Blogger.
Questionably the most important factor of the course, was who we approached for feedback. Much like the biased opinions, we had to ensure we were receiving feedback from those in our audience feedback. Due to our college setting, we were unable to ask many people older than 19 - so our feedback could have been slightly lenient. We also felt it was important to gain a female perspective on our film as we had two prominent female roles involved in a controversial setting. If we were to recreate our audience feedback, I would have attempted to gain 'an older opinion' - specifically reaching out to those in their 20s to see if the appeal of our film was still there.
4) How did you use media technologies in the construction, research & planning/evaluation stages?
Well done Alex. All looks complete and to a thorough level of analysis. Well done on completing the deadline. Forget about it now! Can't see why this won't. as long with Holly and Meg, be awarded a v good mark.
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