What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Unfortunately i could only obtain audience feedback for my actual film as my technology does not allow me to upload images onto face book, despite this I had quite a few comments from face book and one on YouTube. The audience feedback is very important as it allows me to look back at what people think and allows me to change things or say things that i could have changed, despite some silly comments. All the people that commented thought my short film was good despite some errors made, the main points picked up where the tension and the eeriness of the film, people also liked the way the parts of the anime where used to reinforce the idea that the game was real and how I related that anime to the card game and primarily to the film. More time to look into how to edit thing better may of been a good thing as well, several of the shots where mentioned to be shaky or even things being in the background that shouldn’t of been, mild continuity errors and even lines were also picked up on as being wrong and the length of the film as well as the characterisation where key points people picked up on. These things can be prevented by either knowing how to master the editing software and changing filters on the screen shots to erase anything that shouldn’t of been in the shot, or things like time preparation and organisation of where the camera is going to move to, however using basic equipment there will always be small technical errors. The time to characterise again was a key issue, however in short films characterisation isn’t really needed as long as the story has time to develop, this is again one more point that could of been developed, getting to know the characters roles of the bully and as the main character would of been better for the audience and for them to understand more about them characters, however with these faults in mind the audience feedback is helpful to highlight these problems for the future.

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

planning

Blogger: posts and producing the coursework
Google: research and finding pictures,
YouTube: finding out information on short films

Production:
final cut pro
Camcorder
Apple mac

misc
serif
facebook,
youtube

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

The poster is clearly different from the rest, it takes the idea behind the film and uses it in order to explore the idea of the shadows, it takes the ideas from the end of the film and the sense of being trapped, however it does not explain the film it just gives away the ending leaving the viewer or the audience member with questions about what they have just seen, the colours used match with the colours used in the other ancillary task of the review however they also mean different things, the black and the white contradict each other and give the feeling of the shadows invading where the yellow colour contradicts the red by suggesting that things turn from good or happy to bad and more sinister, red and yellow also are used often to express danger which could also be related to the idea behind the shadows and how important they actually are and will be in the short film.

The film review utilises many aspects of the poster for example the colour scheme, however it has used a wider variety of picture that involve the bullying aspect which doesn’t give away anything to detailed about the end story but can still leave the audience with questions, to contradict the serious feel there have been jokes made towards the short film in order to appeal to a wider audience and people that may not look at this short film may read the review and think of it as something fun instead of just appealing to a niche market. Similarly with the poster the colours correspond, red and yellow for danger and the white and black suggesting about the ongoing shadow theme as well as the sharp contradiction of the colours meaning good and bad, in the film review the background is black with white writing, with the poster there is more white present.

The films itself hold all the features mentioned however the yellow colour isn’t mentioned at all, this is due to there being more colours expressed, the yellow was not needed anymore to suggest the good side of things, as other parts of the mise-en-scene did this, with things such as lighting and the colours that the character wore. The name of the film is also a running feature that obviously is in the short film but it’s also mentioned in the same style throughout the other parts of the work, the impact this makes is a mental image recorded in the memory of the audience so they can clearly associate the poster with the review and the short film in any order they see them.

Overall as they are all very differant this helps creat a contradiction, however with the themes they all share they are successful togeather as they can all be linked by differant aspects.

Evaluation Q1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?

A short film is basically an original idea that has a running time of usually less than an hour. Short films can however vary from a few minutes (like my film only lasting just over two minutes) to lasting up to a long period of time, on average short films last up to ten minutes, the films I looked at for planning lasted approximately 7 minutes, the duration of my short film was considerably less than this, however lasting this short amount of time does meet the needs of a short film.

All short films have things with other meanings, perhaps things that fall under the idea that they have a hidden meaning or several different meaning that can be confusing for the audience members or even just things that have a purpose. An example of this in my film would be the idea of the shadows, this hidden meaning is also the idea of hell but this isn’t very clear to someone who has just walked into seeing this film blind, this however is later explained by the main character and the ‘twist’ the story takes. All short films as well have enigma codes (questions to be un answered ) which are then answered later on by action codes. Again this happens in my film with the question of ‘what is the power the main character is on about?’

Genre is also a hard thing to classify as generally short films only have one theme running throughout, my main theme for my film is the concept of bullying and the main area is a school, therefore giving it the classification of a drama. Emotions of fear and anger are explored as well as the feelings of love and obsession in correlation to the cards, the main character clearly feels for his cards as they get ripped up and the obsession with them is that in every scene he is with them. The idea of the drama is that although the film shows aspects of sci-fi it explores mainly the idea that the character is living an everyday life and shows some realism in doing so, it is only the brief flashes of some scene which causes this genre to differentiate from the norms of the drama genre and enter the realms of sci-fi by offering surreal things to happen alongside these everyday occurrences.

Props where used as well but only in small amounts, the cards played a large role of supporting the main character and the cards also corresponded to his power and how balance can be restored. These cards required little to no input to propel the story along and it is only at the end of the story where the other two characters are scene in the cards where effort was needed, the key role keeps the idea of power in balance, the pictures on these cards also hold relevance in the last scene of the film as they hold the pictures of the other characters.

Clips from YouTube where also used in the film, specifically parts of the anime where used to emphasis the points used in the film. This is important as it suggests that the mythology and the history behind the game aimed at children is actually real. This is the pivotal point for the film and the way the story rotates around this idea as well as the twist, the twist however is slightly predictable but at the same time is sinister and allows people to feel sorry for perhaps the characters who where made out to be the bad characters, this is all reinforced by the selected clips, some of these clips are also repeated alongside some of the voices allowing the scenes to flow and to add emphasis onto these clips so they don’t just seem random occurrences.

The story line to the film is slightly confusing; there is a lack of depth however it is still easy enough for the audience to understand that the film is aimed around the idea of bullying and vengeance. There could of been more things added to the film in order to explore this idea further however this could of also had the effect of making all the other random clips seem pointless as the characters could of become to developed.

The twist is confusing and somewhat miss able, It is easier to look at the twist in the film when you look through it several times, the idea that the main character is bullied is the main theme, however this idea gradually builds up into the idea that he will eventually gain the vengeance he so desires with the main character issuing threats, at this point this idea is developed and the bully then gains the fate so desired however he is not the only one, being trapped inside the cards alongside the 3^rd character is the main twist as this isn’t expected, this is a main convention of a short film, all or most short films have an unexpected twist at some point although not all the time are they as obvious as the twist in my film, a prime example being the black button, early on it is determined there will be but it’s not until the end do you realise enough about the main characters to see the twist.

See you in the shadows short film (Media studies coursework)

Film poster

Sorry about bad quality, click to make the image bigger

Film reveiw: See You In The Shadows

sorry about the quality but this is the review