Unrequited Final

Critical Evaluation - Jordan Hutchinson

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


In terms of continuity, we were very concerned with our film meeting the requirements and sticking to conventions. As we would be filming each scene twice from a different perspective, we wanted to make sure the shots in each were very similar, if not identical. One scene in particular was the diary scene which was used twice. We wanted the shots of each character writing in the diary to look almost identical so the audience could connect the dots and see that the female was the stalker all along.

In addition to this, we aimed to use continuity conventions such as the 180-degree line during conversation. We also made sure during the editing stages that the shots matched up when going from one shot type to another e.g.  a medium close-up to a close-up. It was important that we stuck to these continuity conventions, as we didn’t want the footage to look messy and ill fitting.

The content and plot of our film is quite unique in the fact that it subverts stereotypes. In film, and in other aspects of the media, men are portrayed as stalker-type people who harass women with terms such as ‘peeping Tom’ being attached to this behaviour. We aimed to make our film fit the stereotype at the start of the film in order to allow the unexpected twist, even more unexpected for the audience. In addition to this, films with the same genre of our film, psychological drama, often involve twists in the plot which are original and unique – another reason we created the twist. The expectations of the content are deliberately subverted in order for the audience to enjoy the film more. We didn’t want to stick to a predictable plotline in which the audience figure out the ending before they see it, which is why we aimed to use some stereotypical conventions of films involving obsession

For example, 'Fear' starring Mark Wahlberg has the Wahlberg's character portrayed as this stereotypical stalker character.

In this film, Mark Wahlberg’s character is a very menacing and dangerous person. By analysing this film, we found that certain shots such as close-ups and ones shot in the shadows portrayed this very well. We planned to use similar shots in order to depict the same about Jordan’s character, Connor.

The scene involving the female character, Lauren being watched through the bookshelves was intended to be perceived as an element of films involving stalking and obsession. This scene allows the audience to see quite clearly that the film focuses on this particular theme. In addition to this, we also used point of view shots through bushes for the same reason. Also, we used these shots in order for the audience to become convinced that the male was the stalker, causing the twist to be more shocking and unexpected.

Video/showreel version of this question:

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

The main message and meaning of our film is to show that stereotypes can be easily subverted and that things aren't always what them seem, no matter how real they may seem at first. I believe this was reflected in our final poster as it implies a dream-like theme to the film as the image is blurred – showing that reality has become blurred. The poster is also misleading as it shows the male character as a menacing person and sticks to the ‘peeping Tom’ stereotype – something we wanted to achieve in his portrayal as a character.

The audience saw the male character as ‘menacing’ and ‘creepy’ based on the poster, without knowing the film’s plot. The poster is essential in capturing the audience and portraying a clear message as to what the film is about and/or what it involves. If the poster misleads the audience, they may be disappointed when they see the film; also, the poster may put them off the film if they believe it is about something they’re not interested in. I believe our poster would capture the target audience of the film and wouldn’t mislead them as it’s quite clear the genre of the film is a psychological one.

The poster for ‘Fear’ is quite similar to ours as it has the stereotypical male character staring menacingly into the camera. Also, on both posters, half of the faces on the characters has a shadow which implies two sides to someone’s personality: a ‘good’ and ‘bad side. In ‘Fear’, Wahlberg’s character appears as a nice person at first then it is revealed his is obsessed, similarly in our film, Connor appears to be obsessed at first and is later shown as a regular, ‘normal’ person.

Another film's poster we looked at is the poster for 'Single White Female'. We found that the lighting and shadows were very, very similar to the poster for Fear, so this allowed us to see that these type of characters needed to be portrayed in a specific way. The stalker-type character in SWF is shown looking into the camera and half of her face is hidden by the door, depicting half of her menacing personality. In addition to this, The trailer for this film revealed a lot about what the film involved without giving away the entire plot and climax and conclusion. We aimed to do something similar with our radio trailer.

The radio trailer also provided the audience with a good idea of what the film was about and portrayed Jordan’s character even more. When the audience were asked what they thought of the film after hearing the radio trailer, most said they would go to see the film. This feedback showed us both media products were successful in selling the film to an audience.

Unrequited Radio Trailer:


Prezi Presentation version of this question:

Unrequited Evaluation Question 2 on Prezi

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Based on the feedback from the audience, I found that the film was received very well with only a few suggestions for changes and alterations. The feedback was very positive and provided a good picture of what needed altering. As the audience’s opinion is essential in creating and distributing and film, we were very pleased with the feedback.

The original brief in which the audience were asked what they thought of the film idea allowed us to see what the target audience (people interested in psychological dramas aged 12 and above) liked and disliked about the film. The parts they disliked were altered. An example of this was the window scene which involved both characters staring at each other and an edited sound clip which implied this was a dream. This scene was the transition between what the female was making up – the male as the stalker – and what was real. It was said during the questioning of the audience that this scene was quite confusing and unnecessary for understanding the plot, so we decided this scene would not be used. Another example of how the audience research had an impact on the film was when it was mentioned that the titles were too long – this was before they had short footage of the two characters together. We agreed with the audience that the titles were quite boring so we added in blurred clips of the characters together in order to show that these characters were important and that their closeness was somehow dream-like – indicated by the blurriness.

After showing the audience the practice shots, again we received quite positive feedback. Though the content of the practice shots were quite humorous, the audience questioned felt the shots used were good and suited the genre. This feedback encouraged us to use these shots.

 After taking on board what the audience liked the most, we decided we would use plenty of close-ups and extreme close-ups for the 'creepy' effect the audience seemed to like. We also used several POV shots for the same effect. In terms of the audience's interpretation, it was clear there were different views on what the film tried to convey.

Many people saw what was on the surface and their interpretation came from ‘love’ and similar elements of the film whereas some looked further into to cultural and social messages within the film. It’s important for the audience to have their own interpretation of a film because if they feel the film has no message – especially with psychological films – they may feel let down as an audience and see that there was no real point to it. For a film like ours to become successful, it relies on the audience to take at least one thing away from it, whether it be an interesting story or underlying messages.

We were quite pleased with the audience's opinions on the messages within the film as we felt parts of the meaning and messages of the film came across quite clear and they were also able to fill in parts of the message with their own imagination.

Mind Map version:

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

Research was an essential part of creating the idea for the film. To begin with, we researched the type of genre we wanted to be involved in – psychological drama – we also researched similar films to our own idea which involved stalking and obsession. We looked at films on YouTube such as ‘Single White Female’ and several short films such as ‘Stalk’ and ‘Hello Again’, both of which were very different but used several shots which we liked and thought were suitable to the genre. We relied on YouTube as our main method of research as it is the easiest way to access videos from today’s media industry and older films.






We looked on the BBFC website which allowed us to see what certificate our film is – a 12. This allowed us to see what age group our target audience would be in. The internet proved to be the best method of research due to the mass content. We used Apple Macs mostly as they were easy to access and we used them in our media class. We each owned our own technical devices such as desktop computers, laptops, phones with internet access and iPods with internet access so we were able to research at any time.

We experimented with cameras in order to get an idea of what shots we would use. We created some practice shots – many of which were used in the film. Experimenting with the camera, allowed us to develop and alter our ideas as well as come up with new ones.

When it came to editing, we took the practice shots and tried many different editing techniques in order to compare them and see which we preferred. Using Final Cut Express, we used different transitions such as fast and slow fades. This planning technique enabled us to see what editing would be used in the final film. We also used different tones of colour when using Color Corrector. We edited the lighting effect on one particular shot by making it appear sunnier and then edited it again to make it look darker.


The evaluation stages of the project allowed us to see what worked best in the film and conversely, what didn’t. We relied on audience feedback in the early evaluation stages of planning the film to see what people thought of the film idea and what they thought needed changing.

The technology we used to film allowed many more techniques to be explored. For example, the HDV-1000 cameras along with the tripods enabled smooth movement for panning shots as well as a varied set of shots we incorporated into our film. HDV-1000s use SuperSteadyShot, which allowed panning shots to look smoother and had almost no technical difficulties such as a drag whilst manoeuvring and rotating the camera.

The cameras were also relatively easy to focus and we found very face very few difficulties when it came to focusing the shot, in addition to this, we toyed with the focus in order to use deep focus, where objects and people close to the camera and objects in the background are in the same focus. We also used rack focus, where the attention of the viewer is changed from one object or person to another object or person.

 In relation to obstructions and difficulties with the camera, I found that there weren’t enough settings which improved the lighting quality when filming outside. As we filmed in winter, we found that the daylight hours were scarce and often unreliable. We had to alter the exposure on the camera and white balance it constantly in order to achieve a realistic looking light and environment, as the scenery – notably in the park scene – looked far too green and unrealistic. In order to overcome these obstructions , I relied on the editing stage to alter this light. I used Colour Corrector in Final Cut Express to alter the light and make it less white/bright and added blue filters to make it look darker.

Before 

After    

In terms of my creative development, I believe these obstructions allowed me to come up with other ideas which furthered my development. For example, before, I had never used colour corrector before, so I needed to learn how to. In addition to this, there was another piece of equipment which I hadn’t used before – a zoom recorder. It was very straightforward and easy to use, though we struggled to find a suitable place to record. This part of the editing stage allowed me to consider other types of editing for future projects and enabled me to think about other parts of our film which may need altering further.

In addition to this, editing the sound encouraged me to experiment with different editing techniques such as adding echoes to the sound clips in order to see how unusual we could make them sound. After experimenting with the clips, we found that leaving them as they were, with just a few alterations on the quality and background noise, had a much better effect than editing them to sound unusual and suited the genre much better.

Critical evaluation - Nathan Copley

Question 1)

Our media product was created to develop pre-existing forms of conventions of real media products; we took the idea of quite a cliché movie idea such as the typical "stalker" movies where the boy is chasing after the girl, and the movie finishes when he either kills himself of kills/rapes the girl who he is stalking. Our film develops on this otherwise clichéd genre in that the girl who is being stalked in the first place is actually the one who is stalking the male, and the story before we find out that the girl is actually stalking him leads the audience into believing that the male is actually the stalker, but as the movie comes to an end the audience will find out that it was just a figment of her imagination and did not actually happen, it was just an augmented reality that she created within her own head. We deliberately subverted expectations, this relates to Steve Neale’s theory where the audience expects the same genre, but with a unique difference or twist each time it’s done to create excitement to keep the genre fresh, we replicated this idea with our short film product.  Barthes’  enigma codes also applies to our film in that we have a trail that the audience have to follow and unravel clues as to what is actually happening; this lures the viewer into watching it further to see what happens in the end.

Question 2) 

MediaEvalNJCQ2

View more presentations from NathanCopley.

Question 3)


What have you learned from your audience feedback?

These results were acquired as feedback to our original idea which we first started with, these also include audience research such as where and whom  they watch films with. This helped us because it allowed us to think about the route we wished to take with our film and the different aspects of the genres that people like and the genres which people dislike. It helped us build on the idea of our film and cut out a few of the more romantic scenes so that it would transform the idea from a romance to a thriller/drama, playing on the cliched topic of the stalker. I tried to collect a variation of results from a number of people but there weren't many responses.

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This is the final poster we decided to use as an ancillary text.

The poster was created to be somewhat creepy and to give an air of mystery about the film. This is a blurred image of reality; this reflects our film in that our initial aim was to make the audience see something that’s not true at first, this can also be linked to Barthes’ enigma codes because it creates a mystery that eventually gets unravelled, this will also be explained in further detail on the next slide.  The main text on the poster is also slightly skewed further adding to the idea that the main product is not quite right and there is something slightly different to it. I also designed this poster so that the bottom shows darkness/black and the top is much brighter which hints at the idea that there is contrast within the film because there are two different sides to the proverbial coin.

The feedback we received about the poster reiterates these points and I believe that the opinions on the poster are quite correct in that it's supposed to appear as a stalker/pervert, it's good that the audience picked up on this as it suggests that our poster fits the purpose of why it was created.

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We can take both negatives and positives from the feedback we have received so far; the feedback can be used to further refine the finished product to give a greater finish. To collect the feedback, I used the social networking website Facebook, which allows users to comment/like assorted posts. The link to the video was posted onto the site to allow people to view it and "like" and comment.

I agree with the first comment as the titles are quite repetitive and lack creativity, they're also too long. On the other hand, I like the effect it gives of a blurred reality, that the blurred images the audience are being shown aren't true or can be misconscrued into something else and the length adds the effect of an enigma, which is built upon as the short film goes on. Barthes' enigma codes establishes mysteries, drawing the audience into wanting to carry on watching the film so that they can solve these puzzles. This is the reason why the twist is at the end of the film; carrying on with Barthes' proposal of enigma codes.
Question 4) How did you use new media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the very first stages of construction of the product, I researched numerous other short films with a similar genre to ours.



How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creativity?


Although the technology in the HDV-1000 allows it to have night-mode, the shots are way too green and are somewhat grainy, this is a look we did not want to show in our film so we decided to film in the day but edit it as if it were darker. This was achievable in the technology on the program "Final Cut Express" which has an effect called Colour Correcter which allows the colours/tones to be altered to the user's desires. Due to the erratic nature of the sunset in winter, our shots were either too dark or too bright; we have filmed in both daylight and the sunset, both of which aren't ideal because the daylight is too bright and the sunset is too quick and there is not enough time to do all the shots we would like in that time. In the first shot it is relatively dark, halfway through the shot is almost entirely black, therefore we can't use those shots.
So I came up with the idea to edit the shots using Final Cut Express to make simple bright days look as if it is night time. This will solve our problems with shots becoming too dark as they will ALL be shot in the daylight and edited the same to look as if it is at the exact same time. This will be rather simple and the final product shouldn't be too bad, although I assume some quality may be lost and it may not look like 'true' night, just dark blue. Although we will attempt to use the equipment and software to the best of our ability.


Although this will be pretty straight forward, I have found a simple tutorial on how this may be achieved. Using the same methods as the tutorial will be quick and enable us to get a half decent product. This may be the only way to make the daylight look as if it is night using this software. We can experiment with the software to try to get the best out of the film clip, although altering it in this way could lower the quality.

Embedded & Uploaded with Kiwi6

This is our final radio trailer which is approximately 37 seconds long. The new media technology I used to create this was a mixture of Final cut pro, where I arranged the sound clips and added numerous effects, and then I exported the audio using Wavepad sound editor to further refine the trailer. This was helpful because older technology wasn't built for such ease of use and it took much longer to finish a product.

The technology we mainly used was the combination of the HDV-1000, the camera, and a tripod to stabilize it. The camera in itself is quite easy to use and the interface is straight forward. Recording to a tape allows thee best quality to be transferred to the mac using a firewire cable. Although a few problems we encountered with this was when it rained the footage became very grainy and was barely usable so we had to re-shoot the same shot. Another drawback of using the HDV-1000 is the rate at which the focus shift. I would've like to incorporate some more shots using the focus but the ring had to be turned a ridiculous number of times before the focus shift became noticeable. The HDV-1000 cameras we used were somewhat cumbersome and the ability to move around with them is at a premium; they’re quite heavy and with the cost of the equipment we thought it would be a good idea not to do some shots that we were intending to do with fear of breaking them. One of the most helpful features of the tripod was the bubble which indicated whether the camera was perfectly straight on the tripod, this enabled us to refine the shot and minimise the tilt on the footage.
The HDV-1000 camera we used to shoot the film. These were large and and rather cumbersome.
The firewire cables we used to "capture" the HD footage onto the Mac into Final Cut.

Critical Evaluation - Jordan Cockles

SECTION 1

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

Throughout our film, we tried to make use of a variety of shots to convey the meaning of our film. However we had to think about how using a variety of shots would conflict with the continuity of out film. There are some parts of our film that are relatively slow paced but there are faster paced sections such as that in the library which required a lot more thought concerning continuity. An example of us ensuring the conventions of continuity was where we had the eye-line-match from cutting to the female character, then back to the male character, then back to the female character again. This kept the pace of the particular scene and conveyed the implied meaning as effectively as possible which was that the male was watching the female. When it came to filming rather than filming just the shots we needed, we shot the entire scene each time with the camera in a different location, this ensured we could edit our film effectively because we wouldn't have parts of each shot missing.

Eye-Line Match: Taken From: 2:10 - 2:23

We also followed other continuity conventions such as shot reverse shots in the park where the male is returning the females diary, this was to make the audience know that the film is still in the same location and highlight which character is talking and showing the reactions of each character avoiding confusion which happens if the camera stays behind one character for the entire scene.

Shot Reverse Shot: Taken From: 4:12 - 4:14

Because our production is designed to be in a multi-media environment with the internet and cinema, we had to put a lot of thought into the genre of our film and what genre was doing well in the film-making industry. After researching we found that dramas were doing progressively well with audiences enjoying films which depict real life situations, contemporary drama films which have done well in the box office are as follows:

From Left to Right: Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire, The Social Network

The main and most obvious way our film is similar to the drama films that are mentioned above is that they all depict real life events. Drama films often make use of close ups to show the characters feelings and emotions  so we have added some close-ups in our film. We have also added a psychological twist in our film by adding a melancholic soundtrack which makes clear to the audience that our film is not meant to be happy but rather depressive and sad, similar to the serious tone depicted in Gran Torino.

Close-Ups
Left: Shot taken from Gran Torino Trailer: 0:38
Right: Shot taken from 'Unrequited' : 4:21

There is also a subliminal pastiche through our film where we used the diary as an iconic part of our film. The diary is involved with showing the truth about our films character and bringing to place the twist at the end. The inclusion of the diary into our film is supposed to pay homage to the film Se7en which was discussed in our planning stage for ideas.

Pastiche: The book from se7en represented by our diary scene

Overall our film was trying to use the conventions in the psychological drama genre to attract the audience with their interest in watching films that depict real life events which some of them may be able to relate to. The psychological part of the genre should also help keep the film in the viewers head ensuring the idea of our film stays in their head, being careful to avoid the hypodermic theory where the idea is planted into a viewers head, although our film doesn't necessarily view stalking as a positive past time, it doesn't necessarily show it as bad either meaning our film is a 15.

SECTION 2

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

We created our media production for the purpose of entertaining a teenage audience who were 15+ to the late twenties, although our film is suitable for anyone over the age of 15. The film could be seen as suitable for a younger audience but taking in the hypodermic theory of audiences it could be possible for a less experienced audience to see the stalking in our film as an acceptable method of seeing another person, so to avoid this we made the certificate 15. 

With our ancillary texts we got ideas from the other drama films mentioned ins section one. We used the close up of the main character in our film similar to that of the social network. The only main text we used was the title of our film so we didn't give too much of our film away before the audience watched it which is similar to the design of the gran torino film poster.

Our radio trailer is similar to most other radio trailers where it takes out bits of dialogue and has the films soundtrack playing silently in the background. It gives more of our film away than the poster however audiences around the country use radio for times when they are commuting to work or college, or doing work therefore it expands our films reach so the combination of our production and the ancillary texts is fairly effective.

SECTION 3

What have we learned from our audience feedback?

Section 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? on Prezi

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During the planning stage of our production we handed out questionnaires to the general public to find out the current view on films in the psychological drama genre and find out if they would find our film plausible and enjoyable. After doing our audience research we altered our films idea to make it more contemporary and more interesting for the audience to watch.

Whilst filming for our film we needed to think about making the meaning obvious to the audience. We made use of several long shots of the area we was filming and tried to keep the camera in the same area so the audience would not get confused of if they are in a completely different area. We also used point of view shots as well as over the shoulder shots to show the stalkerish meaning side of our film. We also utilised the fact we had a male and female actor so we used the voiceover to ensure the audience knew who’s thoughts they were actually overhearing in the end.

The title of our film immediately gives the audience an idea of someone having feelings for another person without the feelings returned, this coupled with the poster and trailer shows the audience it is a psychological thriller with stalker elements. The main voiceovers and the diary writing scene would make the audience interpret the events of the film from one of the actors point of view and because of the stalker elements and minor piano music would make the audience view the voiceover character as antagonistic. One interpretation that the audience may have is one where instead of feeling that the voiceover character is the antagonist, they may feel sorry for him and essentially view the innocent character as the negative one. The test film should clarify any doubt concerning this.

After putting our film up on the video sharing site youtube, we requested a few peers at our college to comment on the video. We also showed it on facebook. The overall comments were good saying the storyline twist and idea was good.

Because the film received generally positive reviews we didn’t believe it was plausible to make any major changes to our film in case it made it worse.

The audience understood the plot of the film and who is supposed to be bad and good.

SECTION 4

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

Research:

Before we began planning our media products we needed to research specific things that relate to the genre of our film and the audience we were aiming at, we also needed to research specific shots and techniques we could have used in our product. The most obvious research tool we used was wikipedia, however we only used wikipedia to gain basic knowledge due to the extensive and often complex way in which information is presented on wikipedia. So we extended the research we found on wikipedia using video tutorials and video lessons for more research into camera shots and angles. The main website we used to gain knowledge on camera shots and other film ideas was youtube. Youtube contains many videos and the ones we used were other short films produced by small media groups. For information on what our genre is and what age classification we should use for our film we looked on the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) website which documents a lot of information about age classification and genre, it would also be advisable to look to the BBFC because they are the UK classification board that would have to review our film. The main technological devices we used for researching these topics were the apple macs based in the college media department but we also made use of smart phones with internet access and also home PC's to find research pretty much whenever we wanted.

Planning:

After researching for our media product we began the planning stage. We needed to make use of storyboards and scripts. A piece of software we used for scripting was celtx which allows any media company small or big to produce a professional looking script for a film. It allows you to differentiate between scenes and characters effortlessly without using word documents. We also made use of a blogger website called blogger where most of our planning was documented. It allowed is to organise our storyboards, photo storyboards, shooting lists and what equipment we would need each day. We also used blogger to document our character profiles.

Production:

For our film we always planned to have the film in HD because it gives a much more professional finish, so the main camera we used for filming our shots was a HDV-1000 which we used last year in our media production but this year we used a lot more features available to enhance our film such as blur effects and using the focus wheel a lot more, we also used exposure settings to help with later night filming to gain a more clear picture. We uploaded our shots as we progressed through the construction of our film to make sure we had what we wanted using a fire wire cable. For editing our film and putting all the shots we wanted together we used Final Cut Express, this allowed us to use professional editing tools such as effects to give our film a finer finish and gave us a customisable publication setting for HD, so we could optimise our film for show on our desired showing site youtube. It also allowed us to edit the sound of our film so there was a right balance between the actual film sound and music we wanted to use. When we finally produced our film we uploaded it to youtube which allows millions of people to watch our film and leave comments and likes should they find it and wish to do so, essentially giving our film the best opportunity for more reviews and exposure even though we wouldn't make no profit from the production unless we was partnered with youtube.

 

Evaluation:

When we came to evaluating our film we had our video placed up on youtube as a draft which we then used to get suggestions for improvement to finish the final construction stage. The finished film is now on YouTube waiting for people to watch and review it. When we come to a final evaluation of our film we shall use blogger to document our thoughts and put the video over a wider area such as facebook and tumblr to get more feedback and get our film watched by as many of our teenage audience as possible.

How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creativity?

Digital technology allowed to create out own film using our own ideas and using all our own shots and ideas. It developed our creativity because we tried to make use of artistic shots and shots which would tell the story of our film the best. However technology does have disadvantages with it being unreliable and sometimes tricky to use the settings on the HDV-1000 meaning it took time and could sometimes have been very frustrating to use.

Final radio trailer - Unrequited

Embedded & Uploaded with Kiwi6

This is our final radio trailer which is approximately 37 seconds long.

Final poster design - Unrequited

Poster designed in Photoshop CS5. We will be using this as our final movie poster.