Evaluation.By Tafi Muchirahondo

IntroductionThe ultimate task was to produce a short film with a length of 5 minutes, a film poster related to the short film, and a double page-spread. We were to chose a genre, story line, settings and everything included in the film to make it our own. The film which we made (In a group) is entitled ‘The Unchanged Variable’.

Film title: The Unknown VariableGender: All Certificate: 15+Genre: Drama - Thriller

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? In our film, we incorporated Barthes Enigma theory of narratives. This is where tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next.

When making the film as a group, we had to follow certain codes and conventions to help make our film look as professional as possible, and challenge forms of real media products. I have done a lot of research on cinematography, genre and narrative and this has provided me with a lot of knowledge in the film industry before starting to produce on of my own (with my group). I have also done a lot of research on the features which contribute the most in drawing attention to the audience in terms of narrative, storyline, texts such as title, taglines and stickers and much more features. As a group, we looked at numerous short films to give us an insight of how professional films look like. Personally, I was particularly inspired by the following short films: Black Button and Desire of a House Wife (Indian film). These short films inspired me in terms of cinematography and the story lines. Not only did we look at short films, we also looked at normal length films to see the differences between them and short films.

As a group, the first thing we considered was the genre of the film. We had numerous ideas within several films genres but our main chosen genres which we chose included both drama and thriller. It is therefore a sub genre of drama-thriller. A film with the sub genre drama – thriller paced segments and tense sections and this can be achieved by the use of quick cuts between shots and other camera shots. Whilst making out film, we tried out different shots and angles whilst trying to maintain a professional look on the film. Some of these shots and angles where for the purpose of creating anticipation amongst the audience. We used a lot of camera shots and angles in order to create different experiences for the audience as well as to create different point of views for different effects.

After deciding on genre, we went on to decide a story line and possible locations as well as the characters and the number of them to be included within the film.

Another convention which I have met is the use of close up, long shots and mid shots. For example in terms of the long shot, usually, the opening establishing shot of a movie is a long shot. It may build where the story actually begins for example a church, forest, city etc. which ever the location, a long shot is likely to be the best way of establishing it. So as a group, we experimented on using long shots at different angles for the purpose of appealing well to the audience. We did this with wide angle lens. The main thing is what the shot encompasses. If it encompasses a general setting that gives the opening shot of the film as much information as can be clearly presented with one angle, then it's an establishing shot and can be shot with any lens. An example of this is shown by the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esj4DVEr7Sc

It is called a long shot because the camera is placed far away to capture a large area of view, and this is what we wanted to achieve.

In terms of Medium shots, I've learnt that The medium shot should generally contain all the action of the scene and it should be well matched with the flow of the long shot. If the medium shot is a continuation or a further development of the story contents captured by the long shot, then the medium shot should be matched to some characteristic of the long shot with which it is supposed to be intercut. John Ford is famous for relying heavily on medium shots in shooting his movies.

In many media products, it is the title, main image, and in film, taglines, are all usually used as a source of providing an insight of a film. I have learnt this by looking at many media products not only in film, but also magazines and books. This has definitely allowed me to be a lot more aware of how to create product which engages the attention of the audience at first sight, before seeing or reading about the actual product. The most common conventions of a film poster include the main image (mainly of the main character) which is usually the main source of attention along side the title which is usually bigger in comparison to other text, main actors, a tagline and a billing block. Also the certificate (of age entitled to view). My film poster challenges the conventions of a film poster mainly because instead of containing an image of the main character/s, I have provided an insight of the story by including an image of a scene including drug use which is cocaine. Usually, films don't always provide an insight of its story just by the main image. Main images usually include images of the main characters but in this case have used part of the story of what actually happens in the film visually. This situation potentially leaves the audience to wonder who is involved in the film and what they do.

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

The film is aimed at the young audience between the ages of 16 – 25 mainly because of the drug use. I felt it would be necessary to include a theme which would be appealing to this particular age group. Common themes such as the colour scheme of my film poster. I used the colours red, black and white as my main colour scheme and also similar texts throughout. This was for the purpose of making it look as realistic as possible without making it look too dramatic. This feature also appeals to the audience and complements the story line of the film. The red and black depicts the genre of the film which is a drama-thriller in this case. What appeals to this age group the most is the events which happen within the film. Also the characters who are also young. The characters are late teens of eighteen and nineteen years. Having such an age group as characters also contributes to appealing to the young audience of 16 – 25.

In terms of the film review, the large image and fonts contribute to emphasizing the genre of the film as well as appealing to the audience. Typical films with a young target audience such as ‘Harry Potter 'usually contain many images to intrigue the target audience. This is shown in the next page. I feel as though my film review could have appeared a lot more appealing to the audience if I had included several events as images. This would be for the purpose of engaging the target audience. Young audience are usually fascinated by pictures instead of words as they usually prefer to visualize with the images rather than to read and read a lot of text.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The benefits of audience research are that they allow one to make decisions based on different opinions. This is why it is essential to get as much as possible. Feedback helps the receiver to understand themselves better through others, and can help them to further develop, especially if it is critical. The limitations however are that; results may not always be accurate, and also if there very little feedback, there are no opinions from a variety of audiences. I conducted questionnaires for 40 people asking them questions shown on the next page. I did this questionnaire as one of the first steps before making the film. The aim for this was to get opinions from 40 random people to get a view of their opinion, and also to find out the most preferred film genre for the young audience especially between the ages of 16 – 25 as this where the target audience for the film is.

The results show that the most popular film genre appeared to be Drama followed by comedy and horror.

After making the film, I constructed another questionnaire asking the audience for feedback on the film.

For this questionnaire I asked a wider range of audience which was 50 people different age groups. From their responses, I have learnt that overall, the audience were mostly attracted by the main image. This especially from the ages of 16 – 30. Most people were also enticed by title of the film. Many people believed it to be a crime film with elements of horror mainly because of the colours of red and black. I have learnt that as a way to improve, I should include a billing block.

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

Most of my research was from secondary data such as internet research as well as primary research such as questionnaires. My secondary research included search engines on google and YouTube. This included research on genre, how to create short films including the angles and shots which makes a film look professional and in terms of editing; how create effective texts for film titles etc. I used YouTube to watch several short films of which many of them inspired me in terms of creativity. The internet provided facts on media conventions from existing media products. I have published my planning, research, publishing, work in progress and many more things related to the task on Tumblr. this is because it makes it easy to present everything on the blog for easy access.

I used Photoshop and InDesign for the film poster and double page spread of the film review. Photoshop was for editing images and text. I have learnt a lot from the internet how to edit text and photos on Photoshop from tutorials online and from my experience, I have definitely benefited greatly. I have tried my best to create a film poster which looks as professional as can be by creating my own text, especially the texture instead of just using a standard font. InDesign helped made it easier for me to create my double page-spread the way I intended to look.

Critically, I have faced quite a lot of difficulties whilst producing my film poster and the double page-spread. Whilst I was learning how to create certain texts on Photoshop, I did not particularly comprehend everything. As a result of that, I had to work out how to achieve certain outcomes of which some of them I managed to tackle, whilst others I struggled. An example of this when I was creating the fire text. I did not understand every step. On the positive side, I did benefit from certain parts of the editing such as creating a glowing effect on the text.

I also found that InDesign does not has auto correct which made it a lot more difficult when having to change the wrongly spelled words. The same goes for Photoshop.

We captured out film using a cannon 600 D camera. With this camera, we tried out using a lot of different shots and angles to get the best view of the actions and events in the short film.

We Adobe Premiere Pro for the editing of the film in order to create special effects to make the film look professional. This application also allowed us to remove unwanted scenes by cutting, and also to order the film in the way which we preferred.

I used Microsoft word and PowerPoint as templates for my texts. I used PowerPoint for the work which I converted to slideshare for ease of access. I also used Word for my other texts such as film poster analyses then converted to Tumblr for ease of access.

I Converted everything (including the work on slideshare) onto Tumblr which includes all my task work which I have produced.