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

There is one very important piece of software that I forgot to mention in this video and this is Adobe Photoshop CS5. This program is what I used to create my film poster and my film review. Before having to create these, I was fairly confident on Photoshop but I used it more for photo manipulation rather than creating posters and reviews. Therefore, I thought it important to tech myself some new skills. I particularly focused on learning skills that would boost the aesthetic appeal of the text and for my poster, I learnt how to give the text it's attractive blue glow that compliments the background image while with my review, I learnt how to do the peeled sticker effect which is seen at the bottom of the review. Without this software, I would have struggled to produce something of such a high quality that I could be proud of and that would have complimented my short documentary so well.

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

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

A short film is literally "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits." That's all very simple but what makes a good short film? For me, it's something that leaves an impression with you. It could be funny, it could be scary, it could make you laugh or make you cry. I believe that a good short film can subconsciously provoke emotions and create feeling within the viewer. That's what I wanted to achieve with my short. So here is my first evaluation question:

In the below video, I will discuss the ways in which my short film uses, develops and challenges form and conventions of other short documentaries but I want to discuss how my ancilliary tasks used and developed forms and conventions of other products. You can see earlier on in my blog that I researched the conventions of both documentary posters (here) and magazine reviews (here). By doing this research, I had gathered a true understanding of existing products and could therefore think about various ways in which I could design my poster and review.

When creating my poster, I would be using Adobe Photoshop CS5. I am fairly confident using Photoshop and I knew that I could teahc myself a couple of new techniques to create a poster that was aesthetically similar to existing products. I wanted to create something that was slightly quirky and original while at the same time, adopting certain techniques used by the professionals that I knew worked on a real film poster. I started by obtaining a royalty free image of a lit stage. I loved the vivid blues and reds of the image that I used and thought that it would be very eye-catching. Also, from a design point of view, I had a good colour base to work from. I conformed also to having a large, eye-catching title. I used a font that was similar to the title font from the short film and applied an outer glow to the text using the blue colour from the background image. This is different to other documentary posters that I have seen as the titles are often a contrasting colour to the background whereas my title complimented the background image. I also conformed to the convention of having one large central image on my poster. The rock & roll hand with the hospital wristband around the wrist is the focal point of the poster and symbolises Harry's fame as well as his death. This juxtaposition of messages is different to other documentary posters that I have seen and therefore, I feel, challenges conventions.

The image I used for my magazine review

With my review, I based my whole design around one image (see right). Because it was a still from my documentary (which was obviously monochromatic) and the fact that my short film would probably only really receive attention from afficionados and film buffs (who usually read more quirky and dynamic magazines), I decided to create a black and white review. Again, I created the review on Adobe Photoshop CS5 but because I'd never created a film review before, I was a little more hesitant to be original as I didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing. However, once I had designed my basic layout, I became confident in experimenting with the software and discovering new elements such as the highlighted text at the bottom of the review that looks like a peeled text sticker. I think little details like this challenge develop existing conventions of magazine reviews as most review will highlight part of their review to capture their reader's attention but I feel that I have taken this idea and built on it. I applied usual conventions to my magazine review such as the fact file about the piece at the top of the review and having screen shots from the documentary throughout the review.

Here is a video of me talking about conforming and challenging conventions in my short documentary:

Film Poster

For my film poster, I used two images. one of which I took myself and the other from sxc.hu - a website offering free royalty free images on the condition that you adhere to their terms and conditions, which I have done.

Original images:

 This is the image from the royalty free image site. I really loved the colours from the image and the concert set up - it was perfect for my poster.

This is my original image. I knew that I wanted a simple hand making the 'rock and roll' hand gesture on my poster and so I took a few photos. Then I came up with the idea of having a hospital wrist band around the wrist to show the main character's medical struggle - or at least, to give some indication of it. A friend of my brothers had one which he let me borrow and so this was the image I used for my poster.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to create the final poster, changing all the details on the hospital wristband, putting the images together, adding contrast and text and finally, a vignette. Here is the finished product:

Film Review

After finishing my shot film I set about creating my review. I took into consideration all of my research and thought about the conventions of published film reviews: large title, big main image, screenshots, small fact file about the film, text in columns and a rating and came up with the following:

Short Film FINISHED!

So, the many weeks of research, filming and editing have come down to this, the final cut of my short film. I have made a LOT of changes since my rough cut. Firstly, I changed the title from "Keep Smiling" to "Final Chord" as I didn't like the original and I feel like "Final Chord" both sounds better and is more appropriate. Also, I've put the film into black and white as a lot of rock music videos are in black and white and so this is also appropriate considering the genre of my short. Also, the black and white looked better and covered up the fact that the shots of Harry Cadden had a strong yellow hue which i couldn't get rid of. I've also added shots of the main character playing instruments and added a vignette to these shots to enhance the aesthetic of the shots. The music has been added also and I think that it's come out rather well. Granted, if I had more time, I would probably change a few things. But we'll save that for the evaluation, so, here is "Final Chord".

Editing #2

Production Update

New idea for the ending

Magazine Review Research

After getting the majortity of my short film done and doing research into the conventions of a documentary poster, I decided to do some research into magazine reviews. Reviews come in various styles and sizes and I wanted to understand what conventions apply to most reviews, no matter what size or style. To do this, I looked at various sizes of film reviews to see what each of them had in common.

 

 

 

 

 

So, after looking at various magazine reviews, I can conclude that there are certain conventions:

1) Stills from the movie - used to make the review look bolder and capture the audience's attention.

2) Large title - the title is emphasised to capture the audience's attention and easily plant the film title into their mind subconsciously.

3) Putting the review text into columns - makes the review easier to read and doesn't look like a hard block of text to read.

4) Basic details about the film - basic details like the director and actors as well as a rating to easily convey some information about the film to the audience.

5) Tagline - an easy to remember summary of the film to help an audience make a quick judgement about the film and hopefully entice them to read the review.

Magazine Review Audience Research

1) Have you ever read a magazine review for a film?
Harrison Calaby (16) Yes

Ben Thorpe (18) Yes

Robert Watts (44) Yes

Linda Goddard (47) Yes

John Seaman (62) Yes

Alice Calaby (92) Yes

Jack Latoy (18) Yes

Sam Hitchins (17) Yes

Fletcher Watts (11) No

Beth Calaby (12) Yes
-Out of my group of ten, only one person hadn’t read a film review and this person was only 11. This shows that film reviews have a universal appeal so I will have to try and make my review appeal to all ages and both genders.

2) What would you expect a magazine review to be like?
Harrison Calaby (16) Informative, easy to read.

Ben Thorpe (18) Eye catching, have both pictures and text.

Robert Watts (44) Informative, helpful.

Linda Goddard (47) Concise, informative, easy to read.

John Seaman (62) Helpful – tells you what you want to know.

Alice Calaby (92) Helps to understand whether I want to see the film or not.

Jack Latoy (18) Informative, good layout.

Sam Hitchins (17) Lots of information about the film but with a few screenshots from the film.

Fletcher Watts (11) I don’t really know.

Beth Calaby (12) Lots of pictures and nice to look at.
- Lots of people want a review to be informative and easy to read – this means that I need to think carefully about my layout and presentation as well as the content of my review.


3) What's your favourite magazine, despite if it has a review section in or not?
Harrison Calaby (16) NME

Ben Thorpe (18) Xbox magazine

Robert Watts (44) Today’s Golfer

Linda Goddard (47) Horse & Rider

John Seaman (62) Champions

Alice Calaby (92) Sky Sports

Jack Latoy (18) Empire

Sam Hitchins (17) Total Film

Fletcher Watts (11) Ben 10

Beth Calaby (12) Girl Talk
- If I look at these magazines, I can better understand the kind of layout, writing style and aesthetic that people like from a magazine.

4) Do you read reviews elsewhere? If so, where?
Harrison Calaby (16) Yes, IMDb, Twitter

Ben Thorpe (18) Yes, IMDb, Facebook

Robert Watts (44) Yes, IMDb and on film posters

Linda Goddard (47) Yes, online

John Seaman (62) Yes, on the internet

Alice Calaby (92) No

Jack Latoy (18) Yes, IMDb, Facebook, posters

Sam Hitchins (17) Yes, IMDb, Facebook, posters

Fletcher Watts (11) No

Beth Calaby (12) No
- It is obvious that the internet is a clear leader in reviews and it is something that people actually use. A few people also said about the film poster so I will endeavour to make my poster to try and make the film look good.

5) Do you trust reviews on films?
Harrison Calaby (16) Most of the time.

Ben Thorpe (18) I’ll respect and understand their viewpoint, but I like to judge a film for myself.

Robert Watts (44) If most of the reviews on a film say the same thing, yes.

Linda Goddard (47) Yes – it is a professional critic’s opinion.

John Seaman (62) No, it’s only an opinion.

Alice Calaby (92) The majority of the time yes.

Jack Latoy (18) Not really. It’s helpful to have the insight but at the end of the day, it’s just an opinion.

Sam Hitchins (17) Not all the time.

Fletcher Watts (11) I’ve never read one…

Beth Calaby (12) I guess so.
- There is a mixed opinion about whether to trust a film review but a lot of people have said that it’s only an opinion but they will take that opinion into consideration.

Creating Music for my Documentary

Just a quick video explaining how the production of my music for my documentary is going. I gave my brother a brief, he recorded some bits and then we put it all together on Garageband and decided what worked and what didn't . One of the songs that has been finished is below:

I also needed some sadder music to convey the melancholic atmosphere and the effect that the protagonist's tumour has on his loved ones. I found a royalty free track on capoproductionsmusic.com that captured the attitude of my short perfectly and so this is the music that I will be incorporating into my short:

Rough Cut Feedback

This week, we screened the rough cuts of our short films to our peered and received feedback on small sheets. Here is my review of this feedback. Apologies for the horrific quality of the video and my sick-sounding voice.

VERY Rough Cut

This is the rough cut for my short documentary 'Keep Smiling'. This is the bare bones of the documentary so there is no foley sound, no background music, not everything is colour corrected etc. This should just hopefully give you an idea of what I am trying to create for my final A2 Media Studies Project. I'm not even sure about the title of the documentary at this stage but at least it's starting to come together...

Filming is finished!

One Disaster After Another

Filming #2

Editing #1

After filming quite a bit of footage with Harrison, I decided to edit together what I had got so far so I wouldn't have to do a huge amount of editing all in one go. Before editing however, I decided to watch loads of videos and do lots of experiments on colour correcting footage in Adobe Premiere Pro and so I taught myself quite a few techniques. Below are some shots of my colour correction. To show the difference my colour correction has made, I cut the shot in half. The bottom half is before I colour corrected and the top half is after I experimented with colour correction.

After experimenting with colour correction I edited all the footage together from my first day of shooting. However, it is likely that a lot of this footage will be replaced with other elements such as archive footage and shots of Harrison playing instruments or recording.