media project evaluation. 3) ‘what have [i] learned from the audience feedback during this...
TRANSCRIPT
A2 Media Project
Evaluation:
3) ‘What have [I] learned from the audience feedback during this project?’
Sam Lockwood.
Media coursework
Evaluation 2012/13.
Wha
t are
we
eval
uatin
g?
We’ve reached the evaluation stage of our film project and
must now reflect on how we approached different facets of
the production process as a whole.
for this we have been given 4 evaluative questions with
which to discuss multiple aspects of our project– they are as
follows:1) In what way(s) does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4)How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?To make this process more efficient we originally decided in
our group to each tackle one of the 4 evaluative questions
individually and present an extended answer to our own
question before answering the remaining three in brief.
I have chosen question 3). As my role in the group largely
consisted of constructing the films narrative, ‘audience’ was
something that I had to consider frequently and carefully.
Who
wer
e th
e au
dien
ce? Before production on our Short
film began in October of last
year we had to decide exactly
who we intended on targeting
our product towards.In other words, who did we
expect our eventual viewing
audience to consist of; girls,
boys, adults, teenagers etc.
3) ‘What have [I] learned from the
audience feedback during this project?’
Who
wer
e th
e au
dien
ce?
As we decided upon our films genre as a ‘Horror/psychological thriller’ it became necessary to research the most common age and gender of that genres audience.Standard ratings for films of this genre were 12A, 15 and 18 the simple reasoning behind this being that films of a Thrilling or Horrific nature have the likelihood of evoking distress or fright in an audience not yet mature enough to understand or endure its content.
Who
wer
e th
e au
dien
ce?
In regards to age though I noticed in my research there was an almost 50/50 balance between the number of male as opposed to female viewers of Horror films; as this graph, taken from British Film Institute(BFI) website displays.
Feed
back
.
It was of great convenience that
audience which we were targeting
was of a similar age to that of
ourselves as I think this allowed us
to more naturally anticipate the
viewers reactions towards our
product and cater to preferred
tastes (likes/dislikes) of said
audience with a greater appreciation.It also meant that we could pitch our
film to our peers and effectively use
them as an ideal test audience in
order to gain feedback that would be
the most genuine on how the future
consumers of the film would react.
Clas
s Fee
dbac
k.
In response to the rough draft of our
uncompleted film – which can be seen at this
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature
=player_embedded&v=B44s4rcxqzI
We received mixed feedback upon showing it to
our group of media peers.Classmate Ernie Limbo:“Really good opening shots. I like how
there’s a sense of ambiguity in the
beginning. Shot transition between outdoors
and in doors was really good. I'm not sure
whether there are too many shots in the
beginning. There’s a risk of losing the
audience’s attention.
I think you should sync the music with the
shots in the beginning for definite but I don’t
think you need to do that for the whole of
the short film.Some shots were also a bit dark, but as your
filming at night and its low budget so I guess
it’s difficult to have a good quality footage.
But maybe film near streetlights? It might
give a good dark orange look to the whole
thing.”
Clas
s Fee
dbac
k.
Classmate Tas Mahdy:“Loved the changes you’s
made!I think maybe put sound of the
creaky sound of the chair in
the shot where Alec leaves the
room!I think title board will make a
big difference, and love the
idea of the cliff hanger!I like the last shot actually,
and maybe do some colour-
synchronizing in the next bit?”
Clas
s Fee
dbac
k.
Subject Teacher Mr. Wroe:“My view is that you should
include the rhythmic editing
right up until Alec [Keith]
leaves the house.Titles. Watch a couple of short
film case studies and explore
their titles and timings,
consider this with rhythmic
editing.Make a study of how you
address your themes in the
first two minutes. Use this
study to inform future
storyboards.”
Feed
back
re
spon
se.
Upon reflection the main thing we
learned from the class feedback we
received was a greater understanding of how much of a
key role editing plays in communicating the films style and
genre.While student Tas suggested a
greater synchronization of colour in
our film, student Ernie as well as
our subject tutor Mr. Wroe both
found progression of our soundtrack
early on in the film to be most
effective and suggested that we
use the technique of ‘Rhythmic
editing’ to a further extent.
Chan
ges m
ade
afte
r fee
dbac
k.In response to feedback we received from our peer group upon watching our short films 2nd draft We decided to change our filming technique – opting to use a tripod for our next shoot with the intention of gaining smoother transitions between shots.
The use of a tripod added greater stability to the film – most effectively in our establishing shots in which we were able to zoom and refocus between back and foreground for example in these screenshots.
Chan
ges m
ade
afte
r fee
dbac
k. The decision to use a soundtrack and most crucially, rhythmically edit it with the shot transitions in our film, was a key decision made during post production and perhaps the most effective. In the post production of our 2nd film draft we had
experimented with this technique without actually knowing its technical name.When syncing the soundtrack(‘the Thing’) with the opening couple of shot from our film it had a noticeable impact. We were encouraged by this and applied some of the suggestions we heard during feedback – changing the rhythmically edited section of our film from the opening 4 shots to the opening 12 instead.
Impl
emen
ting
of
‘title
s and
cred
its in
re
spon
se to
fe
edba
ck.
In both the 1st and 2nd drafts of our
short film we neglected to include
any titles boards or credits.
Upon receiving feedback to our
piece we were reminded this
something we had to consider.While most films of both the short and
feature-length format traditionally open
and close with the said productions
‘credits’, this was something we avoided as
we did not want there to be any kind of
visual distraction in the opening shots of
our film – it being paramount the tension is
sustained throughout its entirety.
Impl
emen
ting
of
‘title
s and
cred
its in
re
spon
se to
fe
edba
ck. For these
reasons we decided that all of our titles would be shown at the end of the film with traditional white on black wording fading in and out of screen.
Though not being clearly stated at the start, throughout its duration there are subtle implications made that the films title is in fact ‘Screen’.We eventual decided on the font ‘Synchro LET’ which works in couple of ways: firstly it is slightly computerized font which fits with the technological theme of our film; secondly, it being all-capitalized font meant it worked extra effectively when Rhythmically edited with the bold soundtrack when appearing on screen.
Feedback to the initial ident concept: Upon showing the 'SDFX3'
formatted ident to one of our subject tutors, Ms Bird
she had this to say:“The speed and image quality of the Ident was very poor and choppy; so I
would choose an alternative method using much less technically taxing and all in all more user friendly.”
- Con
stru
ctio
n of
our
pro
duct
ion
com
pany
iden
t and
feed
back
to it
.
- Con
stru
ctio
n of
our
pro
duct
ion
com
pany
iden
t and
feed
back
to it
.
This is a snapshot taken from our 2nd ident concept in mid January using Serif DrawPlus X3. The first design consisted simply of a single sheep jumping across the screen past a crescent moon; but I later changed this idea to incorporate the name of our production company. This was done by turning the crescent moon 180 degrees vertically so it would resemble a letter 'C'.
I also had a few similar thoughts on the initial format of our ident – personally finding it difficult grips with the intricate technologies of the ‘Serif Draw-plus’ program.
Our 2nd ident design consisted of a very simple stop-motion animation made up of several small drawings using chalk on black paper which could be easily rubbed out and redrawn leaving only a slight white smudge on the paper.
I also had a few similar thoughts on the initial format of our ident – personally finding it difficult grips with the intricate technologies of the ‘Serif Draw-plus’ program.
- Con
stru
ctio
n of
our
pro
duct
ion
com
pany
iden
t and
feed
back
to it
.
In retrospect the typeface looked quite cheap which in a way worked with the grimy and intense tone of our film, but I would still preferred it to be in colour and overall more sleek. we contemplated possibly making a final draft using a proper LCD Camera rather than just my IPad - as shown here. We decided an alternative to this format issue was using a newly developed app for the IPad ‘Do Ink‘; which would allow us to quickly develop stop motion images through a duplicating system.
- Con
stru
ctio
n of
our
pro
duct
ion
com
pany
iden
t and
feed
back
to
it.
Having had prior experience in using Ipad supported software, I found it quite simple to use ‘Do Ink’ to create the simple sheep logo in our ident.There were some concerns during the production of the newly formatted ident that may seem too detached from our primary product – the short film.The ident having a colourful, almost childlike tone about it, while ‘Screen’ itself is strikingly darker and presents a much less fantastical image.
- Con
stru
ctio
n of
our
pro
duct
ion
com
pany
iden
t and
feed
back
to
it.
Our final ident for ‘Counting Sheep Productions’is one of many examples of how constant feedback we received during the production of our film helped us to perfect its overall identity.
As our ident would immediately precede our film itself, it was vital that it projected the right image.
In evaluation we decided that the juxta-position in moods between the ident and the short film works effectively to highlight the sense of unease in our films narrative; we also added a ‘vignette’ video effect to make ident slightly darker.
- Con
stru
ctio
n of
our
pro
duct
ion
com
pany
iden
t and
feed
back
to
it.
Finished ident can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4prvOSsu984
In su
mm
ary…
The feedback we received during the
production of our film was of great
importance as principally, it gave us
the capability to have our work
reviewed from a neutral perspective.The feedback we received greatly
influenced our consideration of
Soundtrack, Titles and the overall
visual style of our piece.The process of implementing these
features in our film and receiving
regular audience feedback throughout
have not only giving me an advanced
understanding of how to make our film
but has also reminded me why we are
making it and who for.