Advanced Portfolio-EvaluationTo a large extent my media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products in terms of the ancillary texts in particular, as my main product is a short film these do not produce film posters to promote the film itself although it does use a traditional convention of real media product via a magazine review.
To a large extent the technical layout of the magazine can be viewed as ‘classic example’, taken inspiration from the leading film review magazines such as ‘Total film’ and ‘Empire’.
For instance it follows the conventional layout of film magazine reviews, consisting of the archetypal characteristics; main image, secondary image, break out paragraph, plus the typical typography. Nonetheless, these conventions were used as not only constant viewers of my magazine ‘Spark’ but also but the wider audience of readers who consistently read film magazine reviews are familiar with these conventions so rather than presenting to them an unorthodox and unfamiliar layout may turn them away from reading the review. So basically, by following the ‘classic’ layout of a magazine review was done in order to be appealing to as many readers possible.
Furthermore, my film project predominantly follows the traditional plotlines of short film, one of which is a short, sharp and effective narrative (essentially hitting the audience hard with the film’s intended theme and purpose). With the theme of British identity I had taken it to develop and deliver the classic purposes of a short film. Essentially, provoking the audience the question what they are viewing thus concluding the film with what should be the answer(s) to their question(s).
In regards to the conventions of a short film to which I met are the length; ‘anything sub 30 minutes narrative/non-narrative designed to entertain/challenge a theoretical audience;' Paul Swadel (short film producer) and the narrative structure. I followed the typical conventions of a mainstream film with a three part narrative structure, by the means of utilising the elements of non-linear narrative structure in addition. The comment made by Paul Swadel correlates strongly to the all overall purpose of my film. To some extent I had developed yet challenged at the same time the narrative structure of traditional short films, as short films predominantly follow a linear structure throughout the film probably due to the short length of the film. There is simply not enough time for the film to comprise of circular storylines, flashbacks and numerous objective narratives. Short films usually focus on one main character (subject narrative), this allows the character to develop therefore the audience can follow them easily, especially as there is not enough time to create larger plotlines due to the fact it is a short film. So short films have to be interesting immediately and throughout thus gaining the satisfaction of the consumers. This is done through the protagonist and/or the plotline (in correspondence to open ending and enigma).
Whereas, I my film had consisted of flashbacks plus an object narrative (with regards to Mr Smith speaking of his foreign friend over a flashback of his friend) thus developing but
challenging the traditional narrative structure of short films. I had noticed this reoccurring form of narrative structure in the short films I had viewed in my research such as, “Veronique” and “Double Take”. I learnt from the short films I had viewed that the ending to films is very much open ended in order to provoke question and discussion from the audience, of which was one element I hoped to achieve when I was producing my film. In my film, to reinforce the theme of British identity the national anthem was put in the film to reinforce this theme but also highlight the underlying message of the film; ‘is the sense of British identity renown around the world actually in existence today?’ The poster also reinforces this notion, highlighting the contrast of British society, of which is aimed to be portrayed to the audience in the film.
The established forms and conventions of the media and genres I have previously worked in are short film sequences with the incorporation of the thriller genre, of which I did incorporate the feature of using the genre of thriller to a small extent in this short film having had previous experience with the use of it in I had felt confident to use it again with of course, correspondence to the overall theme of British identity.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The context of the magazine (one of the two ancillary texts) combines very well with the main product as it is a magazine of which its principal audience is school teachers (particularly those within secondary schools); form tutors plus media teachers. Conversely, the other ancillary text (film poster) is effective combination of my main product but not as effective as the magazine review. This is because the magazine review reinforces the theme of the film a lot more evidently than the poster. I believe the magazine review emphases the communication of the strongly prevalent theme in the film but I do also acknowledge that film poster does not do this as effectively however that is not the preliminary objective of my poster. I think one ought to have viewed the magazine review or the film to actually truly understand the meaning of the poster. However, the poster is meant to entice question and discussion amongst one self and in groups thus effectively without knowing being persuaded to view the film in order to attain the answers to their questions. I believe that the strongest point of the poster is the overall image as it has no overall target market, its there catch the attention of anyone no matter what their demographic, again in order to provoke thought on the subject matter of the image they have viewed (that of the movie poster). Primarily, designed with this notion in order to gain a large number of audiences besides the foremost one (students). All of which was a key objective of mine I had outlined in the process of planning.
The two ancillary texts work very well together in achieving their purpose of promoting and supporting the main film albeit via different means, from an institutional point of view, the poster is to advertise the film. This allows for a far greater opportunity of attracting no the only the intended but also more so consumers who may not have been expected to view the film who were thought to be far greater to attracted into watching the film especially those outside the primary target audience; the consumers of short film or fans of film with theme of British identity.
Whereas, the magazine article is intended to recommending the film, to some degree in this context this makes it relatively weaker in comparison to the poster in gaining audiences as it has a far smaller audiences in which to capture due to its distribution (schools).
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
From my audience feedback I had learnt various weaknesses and strengths. For example, I had discovered that there were problems with my use of sound but I had also discovered how effective the editing was throughout the film plus whether the purpose of the film was clearly evident to the intended audience (students between the ages of 15-18). I conducted my audience feedback by constructing several questionnaires and giving them to my form class in registratration whilst they watched the film. I had only constructed questionnaires for feedback on the film although I do acknowledge that doing so for the other two media products would have greatly enhanced not only media products as separate entities so that I could develop them after audience feedback but above all my project as a whole. However, I was not able to do this due to the time constraints of the project.
As a whole I agreed with the audience feedback as it made realise how much of the actual film looked rushed and careless, especially in terms of continuity in particular. So, I took all the audience feedback on board and changed the film in response to the feedback I received. For example, there was frequent notations of how abrupt the editing and sound were throughout the film, there was limitations to the what could be done to the sound as there was bad microphones on the DV cameras used plus, the issue of time constraints on the film. I overcame the problem of the distorted sound by using a voice over. Although I do have to consider that there were positive points from the audience feedback, by the means of the purpose and theme were identified.
I acknowledge that audience feedback is very important when creating media products as one has to take into consideration specific criteria with regards to meeting the needs of the intended target audience; above all audience feedback gives me a greater understanding of what I need to improve in order to meet the expectations of the target audience. Otherwise the media texts I had produced would be very irrelevant and difficult to be targeted at particular audiences thus hard to entice people to consume these media products.
4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and the research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout my project, in the various stages of production various technologies were used in order to support and enhance the work of the film project. For instance, in the research and planning stage, my work was documented on a blog via the internet, but even more so the internet had been initially used primarily for research purposes.
Besides that there was the use of DV camera and digital camera (to take pictures of locations of the settings of where I filmed my footage of which was documented on the blog) in the production stage. In terms of post production, a lot more technology was used, particularly, computer software of which comprised of Apple's I-Movie program (a non- linear piece of editing software), besides the music already featured on the I-Movie I used the internet to gain a copyright free music to incorporate to longer parts of the film as the music from the I-Movie software does not always have the necessary music that fits with my footage, that sets the right mood for the footage being played. So that it enhances the footage even further in order for the audience to understand the film better thus enjoy it. Additionally, the program Photoshop was used to construct the film poster; of which the screen shots of the initial ideas are on the blog. This piece of software really allowed me to highlight creativity however, as Photoshop was new to me I could not truly exploit the true capabilities of the software.
Nonetheless, I did learn quickly few of the many techniques to the image manipulation software such as being to layer and diverge images to my own ideas. For example, I had utilised the tool of layering two images together so that the overall picture did not look distorted (plus adapting the colours to do so in accordance to its purpose) thus realistic. Also, incorporating to the previous example was the use of the cropping tool to enhance and attain the desired image by grabbing and cutting the desired images for the final poster. I had downloaded the titles for poster from the internet plus the 'rainy window' filter affect aswell from the internet, to reinforce and highlight the underlying theme of contrast even further.
Moreover, another example of new software I had used was Desktop Publishing, this was used to create the magazine article, and it was much easier than Photoshop to use, although it is a simple amateur piece of software whereas Photoshop program that has far greater utilities. Desktop Publishing was very simple thus easy to use of which meant that it was not time consuming at all. The ways in which this was done was in which in for example the columns and the positions of the pictures were easily possible to move to one’s needs. It was too dissimilar to attempting to produce a magazine article on Microsoft Word although this is not intended to do so; it had similar elements, very practical for an amateur magazine producer like me.
There were numerous advantages and limitations to the technology I had used, for instance a key advantage of using the I-Movie software is that as it was a piece of non-linear editing software it meant that the
original ideas I had from the beginning of the project could be developed. However, there were numerous aspects to the project which I found very frustrating as most of the time I could not overcome these but rather deal with them and adapt my project (mainly the film) to these limitations, of which included the lack of lightening and sound equipment although I overcame the problem of the insufficient amount of sound equipment by extracting the audio and replacing it with a voiceover.
In terms of technologies which I had used in the evaluation stage of my research is the use of Mircosoft Word to produce the overall evaluation document plus the incorporation of pictures but above all; the internet it links into the document so when the overall piece of evaluation is accessed on my blog the links can accessed and images can also be viewed aswell. Plus, i had also posted my film on youtube:
I had also used screenshots in incorporation to the blog in corroboration to what I have stated in evaluation to support what I have mentioned.
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