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.