media a2 evaluation- 'mirror' short film

By Aayush Joshi

A2 MEDIA STUDIES EVALUATION

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• My product belongs to the Drama genre. I have used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media

products. I utilized some key concepts of the quintessential Drama genre, but also adapted it, so that my audience has some familiarity with the genre. The adaptation was also made for the audience to experience some variation in the conventions of the Drama genre, which will prevent de-sensitization from viewing, keeping the audience engaged at all times. My film consists of a linear narrative, and follows Todorov’s narrative theory:

• During the research stage, I watched various films/short films belonging to a variety of genre’s e.g. Schindler’s List and Young Offender.

• I had to do this to fully understand the primary conventions of my main genre, and to take inspiration from other genres to add variation and make it original. I analyzed in detail, how the mise-en-scene, lighting, editing, camera and sound were used for effect and credibility e.g. how quick camera cuts with suspenseful music puts the audience on edge or how an intimate close-up shot of a character crying, supported with sad piano music can make the audience feel empathetic.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• Whilst watching various Drama films, I noticed common forms and conventions within

them. These are:

• The characters are believable in such a way that the audience empathizes/sympathizes with them

• The films exhibit real life situations and occurrences

• There is a steady increase and build up of tension, with determined climaxes to keep the audience hooked.

• At the heart of the drama is some form of conflict, depictions of hardships, difficulties, struggles, emotional, mental or even physical pain

• Ultimately strives to move the audience emotionally

• Overall, the end of Drama films portray a hard-hitting ending leaving a lasting impression upon the audience

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

• Schindler’s List and Young Offender particularly used the key forms and conventions that I had seen in films belonging to the Drama genre. Young Offender is a crime-drama which exhibits real life situations and the characters in it are believable. There is also a steady increase and build up of tension, with a determined climax to keep the audience hooked. Throughout the film there are many close up shots of the protagonist. A close-up shot was used due to its intimacy of how close the camera is to the character, breeding a connection between the actor and audience. Additionally, the close up shots in this film provide the audience with an in depth view as to what the teenagers thoughts and feelings are. This inspired me to include a close-up shot of Ryan’s face when he learns of his brothers death. I added my take on this by having a slow zoom getting closer to his eyes as that’s where most of the emotion was being depicted. My aim was to make the audience cry and feel the same emotion as Ryan in that particular time. The tears in his eyes hopefully stimulated this.

• Likewise, Schindler’s List follows the drama conventions but has also adapted it. The film is a war-drama which is set during World War II. It is the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German Nazi who saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust. In movies set in modern times, a director’s choice to use black and white might seem kitsch. However, Schindler’s List utilizes the black-and-white presentation effectively elicits the World War II era and deepens the impact of the story. The Black-and-white effect also gave Steven Spielberg the option to use sparing color to highlight key scenes and denote shifts in time. For example, the opening full-color scene, one of only a handful of color scenes in the movie, fades into the next scene, in black and white. The shift plunges viewers into 1939, bringing them symbolically closer to the events and characters in the story. This artistic and psychological convention of bringing the audience back in time works well because it captures the way many people visualize World War II—through black-and-white images and film found footage of the 1930s and 1940s. Although modern viewers are familiar to fully colored images and tend to consider such images to be more realistic than those in black and white. In my opinion, the black and white in Schindler’s List connotes an alternate but no less realistic version of life.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• After extracting these key forms and conventions of the Drama genre, I decided that I will use some of them

and also challenge them by adding humor. I wanted to do this because I also wanted to entertain my audience rather than just drowning them in the sorrow that my character, Ryan was experiencing. After revisiting what we learnt about the different media theorists last year, I thought I could add some form of comedy through having binary opposition. Binary opposition is Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory. I wanted to do this by having one twin as serious and hardworking, and the other the opposite, lazy and boisterous. ‘Mirror’ consists of real characters with a real life situation like many families experiencing their relatives going to war with the British army and also hearing the tragic news of them passing away.

I also challenged the common stereotype of having a black or white protagonist in a film. I did this by casting myself in a double role playing the two main characters. Delving deeper it could be argued that I also challenged the stereotype of having Asian men play the role of terrorists etc. Last year, I played the role of a boy who had been radicalized by terrorism. In my film this year I am playing two characters who actually belong to the British army. I think this will be refreshing for people to see and hopefully this will bring everyone together as this is what my aim from this film is.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• Furthermore, I purposely made my title in the end of the film white. After extensive

secondary research on what color to assign for my title I came across a color meaning website. It said: ‘White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection.’ This finalized my decision because my film’s new equilibrium was almost the perfect ending as Ryan’s character became like his brother Aaron’s- from indolent to diligent.

• Furthermore, I wanted the font to look clean and noble to reflect what Ryan’s character becomes like in the new equilibrium. Therefore, I settled with using ‘Helvetica Neue UltraLight’.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• Whilst producing my first ancillary task, the film’s poster, I was looking at a variety of films where there were

two faces put together. Initially, I wanted one side to have Ryan’s face with a cheeky smile indicating his persona and the other side with Aaron’s looking seriously. I was inspired by the poster of ‘Me, Myself and Irene’ where Jim Carrey’s face is split into two pictures with different facial expressions. However, in that film he plays a character with bipolar.

Whilst I was developing these poster mockup’s I didn’t have Adobe Photoshop and was using Microsoft Word, hence the poster wasn’t looking “professional”. After downloading the Adobe Photoshop trial, I tried a new idea for the poster of the film. I created my own poster without direct inspiration from previous work. I wanted the two brothers holding hands on the poster with the sun rising in the background. I wanted this as it depicted what the films message was. The holding of the hands connoted that the two brothers shall always be with each other and the sun rising in the background indicated that there is a sense of a “new beginning/new dawn” in the film where Ryan matures into a man, like his brother Aaron.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• Sound

Sound was key to reinforcing the emotions my characters were feeling throughout the film. During my secondary research stage, I revisited Steven Spielberg’s war drama, ‘Schindler’s List’. As my film shared a common theme of war with this film, the soundtrack would also suit my film. I felt this way because that film was depicting the message that each human life has value, not because of some faith or the color of its skin, but because that life is capable of enriching another life, even producing another life. Likewise in my film when ‘Ryan’ hears the tragic news of his brothers death, he has an epiphany about what has happened and how he regrets not listening to ‘Aaron’. This is the impact that the death of a person close to you has. The music used in ‘Schindler’s List’ consists of a slow piano, it makes one feel so upset and almost visualize the terrible things that the Jews went through. In my film I hope the audience empathize with what ‘Ryan’ is going through.

I also challenged the sound conventions of a Drama film by having Punjabi MC’s track ‘Mundian Toh Bachke’ in the beginning of the film. I wanted this music specifically as both characters are from an Indian background and this song shows the wild side to Ryan’s personality. ‘Mundian Toh Bachke’ translates into “watch out for the boys”. However, due to copyright laws I added it in as a diegetic sound as if it was Ryan’s alarm in the morning.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?• Shot Types

I also challenged the drama conventions by delving into different genres to add variation within my drama. One of the films I came across was the thriller ‘Legend’. I was particularly interested in this film as Tom Hardy was also playing twin brothers. Their wide shot specifically inspired me for my film, as I wanted the lazy brother ‘Ryan’ lounging on the sofa whilst eating pizza and the hardworking brother “over his shoulder”. I purposely put the pizza box within the mise en scene as it shows that ‘Ryan’ gets everything on his plate whereas Aaron is heading out to earn it. This is reinforced by ‘Aaron’ asking ‘Ryan’ how he paid for the pizza, ‘Ryan’ replies “I used your credit card init.” Even in ‘Legend’ the mentally challenged brother is sitting down with the “normal” brother over his shoulder. In ‘Mirror’ this is the first shot where both of the brothers are seen together. It also shows the deviation between the two brothers through the costume. ‘Ryan’ is seen wearing very informal clothes (hoodie and tracksuit bottoms) whereas ‘Aaron’ is wearing his formal British army uniform.


Whilst I was analyzing various short films as part of my secondary research, I came across the Fantasy Drama ‘Mr Nobody’, starring Jared Leto. In the beginning of my film, to establish the twin brothers, I wanted to show simultaneous intercutting shots depicting how they both woke up and did things differently . After seeing the above medium shot from behind Jared Leto’s character , I wanted to use it in pastiche as it shows props within the mise en scene (toothbrush) and the mid-shot shows some part of the character in more detail, whilst still showing enough for the audience to feel as if they were looking at the whole person. This is an approximation of how you would see a person "in the flesh" if you were having a casual conversation. You wouldn't pay attention to their lower body, so that part of the picture is unnecessary. This also made me consider that my film’s title should be ‘Mirror’ as Aaron is explaining to Ryan to look in the mirror, find your flaws and become a better person. In addition to this, Ryan ends up becoming like a “mirror image” of his brother.


Following my secondary research of film reviews, I learned that their primary purpose is to inform audiences/potential audiences about the conventions and overall opinion on certain films. They do this whilst being entertaining and the layouts of the review help allure a potential audience. This can be done through the use of large and eye-catching pictures or unique texts and fonts, which compliment each other to make the text aesthetically pleasing.

Various reviews like the ‘Spiderman 2’ only had one large still from the film which covered most of the page. I believe they did this in order to make their reviews more eye catching. I challenged that convention by using two images to make the review more aesthetically appealing to the audience and to provide my audience with an indication of what tone my film will have.Unlike many real film reviews, my images are not posed for or edited, they are literal screenshots from the live action. I also challenged the codes and conventions by being sparse on the information I included about the film. I consciously decided to do this to create anticipation for the film and make the impact of the climax more hard-hitting. I did however include names of the cast members and this was to give the audience an insight into the quality of the film because if they know the actors then they will also know the quality of the films they are in and set an expectation based on that judgment.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

Ancillary Text 1: Film Review


Ancillary Text 2: Film Poster

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?• Poster• I believe that my poster is ambiguous to my audience but it makes sense to me

as I created it. After thoroughly analyzing my film’s poster, I feel that it could potentially be misconstrued by people who know nothing about the film beforehand. It could be interpreted that the plot will follow the story of a gay relationship between the two men on the poster. The audience could come to this conclusion because of semiotics. Due to the symbolic sign of two men holding hands they could automatically think this. However, this also creates synergy between the film and poster as it depicts to the audience that my story will entail two males who have a close bond. Additionally, I reduced the contrast of the two characters to an almost silhouette like image. I did this because I wanted my audience’s main focus to be on the twins’ hands being together in front of the rising sun, as this matches the tone of my film. However, I left the contrast of the two images high enough to tell that the character on the left is wearing an army uniform and the other is wearing a hoodie.

You will notice that I challenged the typical conventions of a film poster. Most film posters break the fourth wall by having the characters facing the audience, making them aware of their fictional nature. However, I created my poster by having the characters with their back on the audience. The reason I chose to do this is to make the audience curious as to why the fourth wall isn’t broken and because many people across the globe go through what this film has depicted. Therefore, I don’t wish to portray it as a film, I want it to be a tribute to those who risk their lives to protect us and to make us question, are we really living up to our potential?

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?• I didn’t want to make anything too obvious about the title ‘Mirror’ and any

images reflecting this. I have left it open for the audiences interpretation. The only way the audience can link the title to the film/images is that they both become a mirror image of each other. I did not color grade my short film as I used artificial lighting throughout, therefore each shot is well and brightly lit. This was a conscious decision by me as I wanted to constantly foreshadow that Ryan’s future is going to get brighter and brighter. This is also why I chose to have the sun rising in the background of the poster. I wanted the two brothers holding hands on the poster with the sun rising in the background. I wanted this as it depicted what the films message was. The holding of the hands connoted that the two brothers shall always be with each other and the sun rising in the background indicated that there is a sense of a “new beginning/new dawn” in the film where Ryan matures into a man, like his brother Aaron. I used a similar font for the title in the poster and ending of the film because it’s edgy and modern, representing the era of the story.

The main purpose for this poster was to create awareness about ‘Mirror’ and to make my target audience anticipate the film. I made a decision that my film would be available for everyone to watch as it doesn’t offend anyone, and offers a valuable lesson. People from all ages took part in my target audience survey that I did at the beginning of the year. I added positive quotes from critics on the poster as it will reinforce the excitement and anticipation for the film. I also put this text in white as it stands out to make sure the readers eye is attracted to it.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?• I feel that this poster has been effective and successful as I

gathered some responses made to it firsthand. Ashley, 18 commented: “A wonderful poster, makes me feel like there will be a heartfelt resolution at the end of the film”. Seema, 32 commented: “The two males are wearing different costumes, therefore they look as if they are different yet the holding of the hands symbolizes that they have a strong bond.” I was happy that my target audience could extract the key themes out of the poster without knowing the story. This proves that my poster and short film share the same tone and depict the same message.


• Film Review

• Furthermore, I also believe that the combination of my main and ancillary texts are effective with my film magazine review too. This is due to the fact that I have utilized the key conventions of a film review through my secondary research from different film magazine reviews and challenged them. I feel that my review challenges the conventions of most of the film reviews I analyzed as they included images that were posed for. The images on my film magazine review are not posed for or edited, they are literal screenshots from the live action. In my opinion, this is better as it makes the films aesthetic less bias and provides a true sense to the tone the film depicts. Once again I challenged the common conventions by not breaking the fourth wall through the images. I included the image of the wide-shot I used to first show the twin’s in the same frame (top right), and I included the image of my protagonist Ryan (bottom left). I put a picture of Ryan alone to indicate to my audience that he is the main character of ‘Mirror’.

• The image on the top right connotes that one of the twins belongs to the army because of his uniform, and it also suggests that the brother standing up has more authority as he is looking down at his twin and his twin is looking down at the floor. I did this on purpose as I wanted this to contradict the poster of them holding hands. I wanted the audience to see the above image and feel that their relationship is fragmented, to make the impact of the climax more hard-hitting.


Most of the film reviews I saw had the film’s title over their main image. I put the title by itself on the top left of the page. I did this because I want the audience to remember the name of the film as it needs to have recall value to be commercially successful. I put the main image on the right hand side of the page. I have all the generic elements to a review such as: plot, overall star rating, age rating, cast, runtime etc. I feel that this all adds to create a higher surface level accuracy and thus providing the illusion of a higher budget/higher quality . I also included a pull quote from my film to further entice my audience to watch my film, and I included the typical column format of the text. I feel that these aspects have given my review an aesthetic advantage and it looks professional.

At first I had tried different colours in the background of my review (bottom image). I wanted to have a white background as white matched the tone of my film. White symbolizes perfection, goodness and purity. However, after actually starting to create a possible layout with white in the background, it looked very plain and dull. I feel that the black behind the text makes everything stand out and become more eye catching. Furthermore, the color black juxtaposes the theme/tone of my film. It symbolizes the unknown, and as a result it creates an air of mystery. This reflects the image I have also chosen on the top right of the review.


• I feel that the only weakness I had in my film magazine review was the written content (review). I feel this way because it lacked the typical review style that critics use. I found it very hard writing this review acting as a third person who wasn’t involved in the production of the film. I didn’t keep a fair balance whilst extracting the positives and negatives out of the film. Film reviews are normally unbiased, but I included a larger proportion on the positives of the film compared to the negatives. However, I could argue that through my audience feedback it is justified as the audience loved the film.

• Overall, the main challenge I faced in the construction of this review was that in the beginning, I didn’t have Adobe Photoshop. Therefore, I was making my mockup ideas on Microsoft Word and it wasn’t looking professional and was much harder to do than Photoshop. This led to me downloading the Adobe trial and downloading all the software for a limited time. From then the process became more comfortable and it allowed me to make a professional looking film magazine review which compliments my short film and other ancillary task.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?• I believe that synergy has been created between my texts as I have displayed the positive comments made

by ‘Total Film’ on my film’s poster, which is also the company which my film’s review belongs to. This will allure people to my film review and after reading the excellent rating that the critic has provided, they will be persuaded to watch my film.

• Furthermore, I have included my name on all of my texts. Hopefully this will retain my current audience that I have already gained through making short-films with friends in holidays. These films are also available on YouTube.

• Finally, I included a pull quote in my film review which is a significant line within my short film. The quote is “always do good deeds so that you can face yourself in the mirror Ryan”. This created synergy with all my texts as it highlights the title of the short film and hints why the title is ‘Mirror’. It also depicts what the message of the film is.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

After showing the initial drafts of ‘Mirror’, and my film poster to the class, I had received some feedback on what my strengths and weaknesses were at that point. The feedback on the left is of my film poster and the right is of the short film. The person on the left liked my creativity that was gone into the poster and the message that I was trying to depict, along with the professional design. However, it had its flaws as my title at that point was too large therefore the ‘R’ was camouflaged over a black object in the background of the poster. This informed my decision to reduce the size of the text so that everything could be easily visible. Furthermore, I made the credits on the bottom of the poster more visible by slightly increasing the size. The following person wanted me to keep the sun centered so that there was like a mirror image of the brothers holding hands in front of it. This made sense as it fitted in with the tone of my film , thus I made the change. Initial feedback like this was vital for the development of my production as it told me where I was going wrong so I could easily get back on track again. Furthermore, when people appreciated my efforts it boosted my confidence as I felt like I was heading in the correct direction and that my vision was being seen by others.

Samples of feedback

Overall, the initial feedback of my short film was surprisingly very positive. Everybody liked what I was trying to say through my film and they loved the different camera angles I had used for different effect, alongside the audio to reinforce certain emotions that the character was feeling. This also helped the audience empathize with the character. The improvement that this person gave me was a continuity mistake. After Benoit’s character comes in Ryan and Aaron’s house to notify Ryan about the death, he forgot to shut the door and walked straight in. Then later on in that scene the door was shut. To avoid this continuity mistake, I cut the shot before he walks past the camera to imply that he would’ve shut the door on his way into the house.


• I created a survey on ‘SurveyMonkey’ to gain audience feedback on my short-film and shared it across different social media. I did this to see how successful my product was and so that I could see what I could improve for next time. The following are the responses I received.

What is your gender?

25 females answered my survey and saw the film compared to the 11 males. This was particularly surprising because I anticipated more males seeing my film and answering my survey as there are no female characters within the film which other women could possibly identify with. Additionally, I felt this way because ‘Mirror’ consists of a male-oriented nature and one could argue that I stereotypically presented men. I could’ve done this by showing the males as the “more superior and powerful” gender by depicting them going off with the army to a warfare, protecting all the civilian’s. However, my feedback from the survey proved otherwise, as nearly 70% females watched my film after it had been broadcasted on YouTube. Furthermore, some cultures associate the hands and eyes with femininity and spirituality. This could’ve been interpreted by my female audience, through the camera work in the film, highlighting the eyes and hands. This taught me that gender roles are social constructs, and rather than believing whether the film relates more to a ‘man’ or ‘woman’, one should question whether either sex is able to relate to human emotion and enjoy the film for its diegesis.


• What is your age?

What is your age? The people who watched my film and answered my survey consisted of people from a variety of age groups, suggesting that I targeted my audience correctly. My aim was to get people of all ages to watch my film. From the people who answered my survey, there was 1 person under the age of 10, 2 people between 11-15, 10 people between 15-19, nobody between 19-24 and 23 people who were 24 or over. This proved that my product was very convincing and attracted a large audience. I feel that only 1 person under the age of 10 answered my survey due to that age group not being exposed to too much technology.

What genre do you think 'Mirror' falls under?I was satisfied with these results as most of the people (65%) realized that my film belonged

to the Drama genre due to the key conventions that I used to construct the film. 4 people thought that my film belonged to the War genre and 1 person felt as if it was a Comedy. It’s understandable why people chose these two genres. It’s because I added some conventions of these two genre’s into my drama to add variation and make a unique film. The film has a key theme of war as Aaron is in the army, and I added a comedic personality to Ryan to entertain the audience and to reinforce how much he changes by the end of the film. Furthermore, I don’t agree with the people who thought my film was a Thriller, Crime, Action or Adventure because I didn’t use any typical conventions of these genre’s.


• When I asked my audience which aspect they felt was best within my film, most people chose ‘Camera Work’ (38%). Secondly, people chose ‘Characters’, ‘Plot’ and ‘Music’. Unfortunately, nobody chose ‘Lighting’ and ‘Costume’. I’m glad that the way I framed each shot with the camera was appreciated by the audience. Whilst planning, I carefully considered what angle/shot type I could use and how it portrayed how each character was feeling e.g. the close-up shot with slow zoom into the teary eyes of Ryan when he finds out that his brother has passed away. I was also happy that my characters and plot were appreciated because I believe that a film cannot be successful without being strong in these areas. My characters were relatable and heartwarming. I also constructed the plot in such a way which inspires people to be connected closer with their family/ to be the best possible person they can be. This was reinforced by my choice of music, as it built on the emotions that my characters were feeling. To be honest, I was disappointed that nobody chose costume because I had extensively researched into what type of costume members of the army wear and spent £35 on the costume of Aaron.

Which aspect of 'Mirror' do you think was best?

When I asked in my survey if my audience enjoyed the film, 36 people said ‘Yes’ and 1 person said ‘No’. This proves that my film was very successful and it was my aim to make my audience enjoy the film from the beginning. Through my secondary research of the background of short-films, I found out that short-films are typically used to prove one’s talents in order to gain funding for a full length feature film. As I aspire to become an actor, I will be showing my film to some film producer’s.

Did you enjoy ‘Mirror’ and why?


• 57% of the people who answered my survey thought that the target audience for ‘Mirror’ was ‘All ages’, next was ’15-19’ with 24%, thirdly ‘19-24’ with 14% and the other options had 3%. I’m glad that the majority of people thought my short-film was suitable to all ages, because I wanted it to impact everybody’s life in a very positive way.

• Whilst I was deciding on who my target audience should be, I researched what age rating my film would receive according to the ‘British Board of Film Classification’. I analyzed the context of each of their age ratings. According to their website, 'Mirror’ would be categorized as a PG film. This is because the only potential problematic topic I have is bereavement. However, as written on their website, this will pass as PG. My film doesn't contain any bad language apart from "shit". I only utilized this to build on the stupidity of Ryan’s character. This also will be passed at PG. There would've been a problem if my character was a child and consuming alcohol, however he is not and later the character realizes that it's wrong. The violence element is not visible it's just mentioned and this is what links to the bereavement.

Who do you think would be the target audience for 'Mirror'?

What could be improved in 'Mirror'? I was very happy when I was looking through the answers for this question because most of them said nothing should be improved! However, I always feel that there is room for improvement. One person stated that they wanted to see a feature length version to explore the relationship of the brothers fully. I completely agree with this statement as I wanted to explore more of their relationship in my short-film too. However, due to time constraints I was not able to. Another person stated that the background sound between different camera shots needed to be improved. There is a slight muffling sound behind some shots. I believe this is existent because I had to increase the volume of some of the audio in the shots as you couldn’t hear what the character was saying. I tried to overcome this whilst editing by dubbing the audio. However , this made the background sound more obvious because the dubbed audio had no background sound. Next time, I would dub the entire film to prevent this from happening again.


• I was also very happy with the responses I got when I asked my audience what their favorite scene was. The fact that everyone gave scenes that were from different segments throughout the film proved to me, that my film was very effective and that it touched the audience.

What was your favorite scene?

Who in your eyes was the main character?

54% said that Ryan was the main character and 46% said that Aaron was the main character . To be honest, when I was creating these characters, I didn’t really think about which character would be the main one. This was due to the fact that they both heavily impact the story and reflect each other that it becomes hard to tell. However, after revisiting the film and watching it as a third person, I would probably put Ryan as the main character. I feel this way because the story is constantly about him and how he develops. Aaron is like the catalyst to his change.


• After seeing these results, I felt very proud. Most of the audience gave ‘Mirror’ a 10/10. This suggests that I effectively utilized all my research and used the different technical aspects to create potent meaning within my short-film. For the future, I shall aim to make everyone rate my film as a 10/10.

As a whole, what would you rate 'Mirror'?


• From all the responses that I have collated, I noticed some improvements that came up more than once. These are key things that I would definitely change if I was to make ‘Mirror’ again. Like I mentioned earlier, I would dub the entire film for the continuity of sound and to make the audio clearer. This will also make my short-film seem more professional.

• Furthermore, my audience stated that they would’ve loved to see more information about the two characters. If I was to approach this task differently in the future, I would add more interaction between the two brothers so that the audience can see if their relationship is impregnable or or fragmented. This could also be achieved by having flashbacks. When I was developing my screenplay, I had initially added in that after Aaron’s tragic death, Ryan would go into Aaron’s bedroom, see specific things and have flashbacks about him and Aaron talking about that same object he sees. I also thought that if he looked at a photo of Aaron, he could remember how it was taken etc. I feel that I could also start the film by showing how Aaron and Ryan’s parents died and how the twin’s reacted and recovered from this.

• Lastly, many members of my audience seemed to criticize Benoit Ganesan’s performance. He played the male from the army who delivers the news of the death to Ryan. Benoit’s passion doesn’t lie in acting and I needed someone to star in that cameo, and I’m very thankful that he helped me out. I take full responsibility for not directing his character well enough. When I next direct another actor, I will utilize several effective rehearsal techniques to play certain characters that I have learnt through Drama.

What would I change?


• All of the feedback I received on my film was from varied audiences and all consisted of different opinions on my film. My primary aim was to entertain, emotionally move my target audience and depict the social message of being close to your family/friends and listening to other people because they have wisdom and have experienced more in life. I feel that I have been successful with this film as most people rated the film a ‘10/10’, and they wanted to see a full length feature version of it.

• I also received constructive criticism on my work. I will take all of these criticisms into consideration in my next project and make sure that I don’t make the same mistakes again. I don’t usually like to hear negative things about my work, however this is all healthy as it will make the relationship between me and my audience stronger.

• Overall, I am pleased with the responses I gained from my survey as my audience shared their dislikes and how I can improve my film, and they also provided me with the confidence to try new things with my work by complimenting things I did to make my product unique.

Summary Of Responses

HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

• I used a wide assortment of new media technologies whilst I was in the research stage of my short-film. Firstly, I used Google to gain all the knowledge on the different genre’s of short film’s, the history of the genre’s and what key codes and conventions they consisted of.

• I utilized social media to showcase and spread my work through my friends and family members. Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp Messenger were used to share my target audience survey using Web 2.0. It uses Web 2.0 as it allows my audience to share my survey link with others too, resulting in a higher amount of respondents on my survey. I gathered all my research and uploaded it to my blog through Blogger. This acted like an online portfolio/book of all my work.

• I created my survey on SurveyMonkey.com. This website provided me with a basic layout in which I had to drag the question types in. I had to choose if I wanted my audience to answer the question in form of a comment box or multiple choice option etc. I had to log into my SurveyMonkey account and it would tell me how many people have responded to my survey. I was disappointed that you couldn’t tell who answered what on your survey, the respondent is left anonymous. The reason I felt this way is because a minority of respondents didn’t take my survey seriously, which could’ve damaged the accuracy of my results.

• Lastly, I utilised video sharing web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and Vimeo when I was watching and analyzing 10 different short-films. These websites allow amateur to professional producers to broadcast their work. All my drafts were uploaded to YouTube, however I had them saved as unlisted as I didn’t want anyone to see them. I just needed the link so that my teachers could see how I was progressing. However, I have saved my final version of my film as public as I hope to catch the eye of a producer/director and also gain more constructive criticism on my work.

Research


• In the planning stages, I used new media technologies such as iMovie again, to create my animatic. I did this by first drawing out my storyboard, taking pictures of them on my phone and then I transferred it onto my MacBook Air. After I imported these pictures into iMovie, I cropped the pictures so that in the animatic, you only saw the image of what the shot will look like.

• After adding all the images onto my iMovie timeline, I added transitions, diegetic sounds and music to create the tone that I wanted to depict in my film. I could only depict the tone in this way as I didn’t have any dynamic footage. I feel that this was a great starting point for me as it enabled me to see if my film would flow and remain logical.

Planning

The images on the right depict my progression from my storyboard to my real short-film. Everyday when I was filming, I used my storyboard as a guideline so that I remembered what shot type I had to use and how long its duration was.

Furthermore, I also uploaded all my progression during the planning stage onto Blogger. I uploaded each frame of my storyboard and the animatic. This documented how I got from point A to point B.


• Before tackling my A2 project, I only had basic knowledge/practical hands on experience regarding new media technologies. At AS I learnt the basic skills from my peers as I was never exposed to this. I was always fascinated by it, but never tried it. The basic skills I learnt last year were: how to shoot using a DSLR camera, import the footage to the suitable editing software, put different shots together with smooth transitions in between and insert background music to reinforce the tone that you are trying to set/ reinforce the character’s mindset. I truly have grown in A2 as I was “thrown into the deep-end” and forced to learn new skills by myself.

• I initially utilized Microsoft Word to create my ancillary texts, however I soon found out that it wasn’t suitable for the high quality professional looking results that I was aiming to achieve. Therefore, I downloaded the free trial for Adobe Photoshop. I had plenty of previous experience using Adobe Photoshop as we have been encouraged to use this software throughout our school years for various subjects such as ICT. I consider myself lucky that I already owned a MacBook Air, therefore I had constant access and was able to edit/create my texts and allowed me to commonly experiment. I shot my film using a Nikon D3300 DSLR camera and I shot one scene using a GoPro Hero 3.

• For the editing of my short-film, I utilized iMovie. I didn’t buy the Adobe Premiere Pro software because I felt as if I could achieve the same thing using iMovie and in a simpler format. The biggest challenge/development I had from AS was learning how to perform the VFX shots with the twins in the same frame. I researched tutorials on YouTube to guide me. I also took some help from my friend as he had performed VFX shots in his previous short films. However, there were limitations too. The iMovie software doesn’t allow professional plugins, therefore I couldn’t achieve the smoothness in my slow motion frame If I could, I would’ve increased the frames per second. I grew my stubble and filmed all of Ryan’s scenes and then I shaved and filmed Aaron’s scenes. After doing this I had to mask the footage over the other to make both actions happen within the same scene. Furthermore, iMovie helped me stabilize the shots that were slightly shaky and it also allowed me to modulate the audio to be at the correct pitch and tone.

Construction


• Before I could begin my evaluation, I had to create my audience feedback survey, share the survey and ancillary texts to the public and get results. I used social media to share my product’s as then this could be further shared to receive a wider range of audience span.

• I utilized social media to showcase and spread my work through my friends and family members again. The different social media I used was Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp Messenger. I made use of all the WhatsApp group chat's I’m in and my 1000 Facebook friends by sharing the links through these to increase my YouTube viewing and to increase the number of responses I got on my survey. I decided to upload to these forms of social media because I want to market my product well and so that it reaches a large amount of poeple in a short space of time. I was able to do this from my personal previous experience of seeing what forms of publications share things swiftly and efficiently.

• I was disappointed that you couldn’t tell who answered what on your survey, the respondent is left anonymous. The reason I felt this way is because a minority of respondents didn’t take my survey seriously, which could’ve damaged the accuracy of my results. Furthermore, you will be reading this evaluation on my blog through SlideShare. SlideShare allows you to upload a PowerPoint to their website, and you then embed the link into your blog so it’s easily accessible from there.

Evaluation


• I believe that I have used new media technologies in all forms effectively to successfully make my short-film and it’s ancillary texts. The most work required with these new media technologies was during the construction stage. I bought the Nikon D3300 DSLR camera especially to gain the highest quality from my film, making it seem professional. Additionally, I feel that the use of software such as Adobe Photoshop, which is used by professional’s enabled me to compete with real life media products.

• I feel that I used these technologies very effectively as I made it seem like the twin brother’s Aaron and Ryan genuinely exist through VFX. By using these software’s regularly, one is constantly learning and there are no limits to what you want to create.

• Overall, I feel that I have grown a lot since last year and am pleased with my progress. My knowledge is constantly expanding and I believe that I have created a very powerful, emotional and hard-hitting short-film with ancillary texts that create synergy with it. I am very thankful to all the teachers who guided me along the process and my peers who helped me when I was in need of succor.

Did I use these new media technologies effectively?

media a2 evaluation- 'mirror' short film

Education