Evaluation - Amy Sharp

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

When relating one product to another research is vital in the understanding of the task, looking back at what I learnt from my initial short film research I have found the following conventions are apparent:
In all of the products I analysed they have a simple storyline that isn't complex however, they all include a plot twist or second understanding that catches the audience out. Such as in the short film '30 seconds 2 late' the audience is initially led to believe it has a happy ending but through clever editing the truth is revealed. Which leads me to believe a short film can have a open or closed narrative it isn't a fixed decision, this is because the short film 'Exposed' has an open narrative that has a sinister/disturbing meaning whereas '30 seconds 2 late' is closed and the audience is unaware of the plot twist until it is revealed.

Camera work, sound and mise en scene is specific to the film rather than a convention across all. For example:
Phone Box (mvillasenor 2013)

Virgin media shorts

'A man is threatened and must complete a task to save his daughter'

A foley of a phone ringing begins the short film. The camera focuses of a males feet running, accompanied by an intense soundtrack. The camera cuts quickly focusing on his legs and torso before cutting to a long shot of his whole body running down a street, this builds tension and is a common technique used to show someone either being chased or running in an intense situation. As the character runs towards the camera we see the distress in his facial expression before he runs to the telephone box the camera shows 3 shots when he goes to the phone. The first is from side on and shows him opening the door which quickly cuts to the second shot which is a high angled shot in the box to show him grabbing the phone rather than calmly picking it up and finally to the last shot which is a close up outside of the box focused on his face to show his reaction to the conversation. In three simple shots the director is able to show intensity in each action highlighting how every dramatic action is important to the characters emotions. The conversation in the telephone box informs the audience that if he keeps being late ‘your Aiko will start losing fingers’ the camera is face on in a close up so the facial expression of fear is shown clearly on his face. The camera follows each action the character makes so it places us in the scene and puts the audience in the prospectus of the male using pov shots and close ups to convey emotion.

The short film is set in either china or japan as the main character has cultural traits along with the language used, they have subtitles in English. There is a time change in the short which is ’40 minutes earlier’ to the first scene which goes against todorovs theory of narrative; it is a disruption of equilibrium first. This is a common technique used in action/adventure films; they use a chase or highly intense situation to open the film to intrigue the audience and do not give too much away in order to engage the audience’s attention. The next scene is the complete opposite of the one before, it is calm in a lobby with diegetic off screen music of a piano.  

The familiar man from before walks across in a medium close up before being called over by a white male who is smartly dressed in a suit, presumably an employee. Interestingly he speaks English but with an accent which is contrasting with the foreign language exchanged before. The main character is given a parcel and as before 3 shots are shown: each a close up of the male dramatically opening the package building tension. A close up reveals what is inside, it is a plushy toy which we can assume from the opening it belongs to Aiko. A foley of a phone ringing sounds as we see the toy followed by the voice from the telephone box. In a close up we once again see the facial expression of the character this shows how he has a close connection to Aiko and the toy is key to her personality/character. A quick cut to an extreme close up of the phone holder appears on screen. At this point we can assume we are back to present day as the character is out of breath and the conversation carries on from before. A low angled medium close up shows the character take out an object from underneath the telephone. It changes to a high angled shot in order to show a better view of the object which we can assume from the context and shape it is a gun, this is a semantic code in a thriller genre and also an action genre. As he looks over to see the man the antagonist describes the camera moves over too showing through the telephone box a male character, all the voice says about him is ‘you know what you have to do’.

Faded shots begin showing either the future or what he imagines it is unclear, the voice over of the antagonist plays through as the camera cross cuts between the character in the telephone box and in the faded shots where we assume he is going to kill the man. We see shots of everything that has happened including him raising the gun before it all merges into one building tension. It is suddenly cut off by returning to an extreme close up of the phone holder, as the phone is put down dramatically the sound is replaced by a foley of a gunshot. So the audience can only assume he killed the man.
The scene changes to a street where the character walks into shot on the phone. It is a females voice and the medium close up shows his confusion and distress, she then says ‘Aiko, daddys on the phone’ which shocks both him and the audience as it reveals she is safe and in no danger at all. He asks where her toy is and in reply the woman, presumably his wife, says ‘right here. She never lets it go’ the character stops walking straight away and the camera moves back showing the toy in his hand and his shocked facial expression. He drops it and the camera cuts to a close up of it on the ground as police sirens sound in the background. 

This short film showed me how camera techniques can change the atmosphere of a scene as well as sound. Using close ups can draw attention to certain areas in the shot, giving clear information to the audience. We used this technique to draw attention to certain aspects in our film, as well as using sound to build tension when needed in order to hint towards a sinister occurrence in the film. From researching one short film we learnt a lot of key conventions in terms of mise en scene, camera work and sound these being how to build tension in a short amount of time (especially for thrillers) and how to use sound and mise en scene to convey hidden meanings.

Characterisation is something we had to think about in terms of quantity, age and gender. As we wanted our film to be realistic we aimed to find a group of 4 that knew each other comfortably enough to look natural when playing and conversing during the film. We decided to have 2 couples to even out genders and make the likelihood of them meeting and playing a game more realistic. The aim was to have them aged 18 to be within the target audience of 18-25 year olds which is common in all films not just short films, the main characters are relatable to the target audience.

In our short film we followed the conventions that match our chosen genre (thriller) to successfully create the short film.

nine frame analysis:

Our short film begins with a extreme close up of a mobile phone falling to the ground (in slowmotion) as our title flickers on screen in sync with the foley of a disrupted phone call. Beginning a circular narrative to grab the audiences attention, the title is placed clearly in the center and flickers to show the disruption of the scene.

The shot is cuts to a close up of wine glasses being filled to capture the audiences attention further as it is so abrupt. The setting is clearly different to the opening shot implying to the audience they are watching a different time to the one before, the use of low key lighting in the opening shot contrasts with the high key lighting shown in this shot further suggesting the change in time and place. The shot clearly shows 4 wine glasses hinting to a group from the beginning.

A medium shot places and introduces the first 2 characters of the short film, they exchange dialogue before a shot reverse shot sequence to keep the recording smooth and the editing less jumpy between shots. The wine glasses are kept as they were in the shot before for continuity and due to the smart/casual costume choices it further suggests they are/have company.

 The four shots to the right are examples from the shot reverse shot sequence, the purpose of this is to show the dialogue being exchanged between the two characters as well as seeing their facial expressions throughout. The dialogue of this scene is important because it confirms they have guests and that they want to play a board game which is the key part of our film therefore, a shot reverse shot sequence is appropriate.

After the shot reverse shot sequence the film returns to the original framing from before as the male character leaves the shot. This avoids the audience becoming confused with any drastic angle changes and keeps them interested as it is easy to follow. 

Above is a match on action that shows the audience the male character finding the boardgame, the match on action gives the content a more interesting view point rather than it being from behind the whole duration. It is a strong opening sequence and stays natural which is what we intended, the shots used at the beginning are easy to follow so keep the audiences attention but are well thought out and creative. Along with our short film we created a poster and review to have a small marketing campaign like those in the real media. 

Our film posters purpose is to compliment and represent our film, looking at other posters early on in the portfolio allowed us to see how different layouts work and can change the atmosphere of a poster. 

A Church of Cards

Conventions:

• The text of the title is larger than all other text.
• main image - kept away from majority of the text.
• The secondary image reveals the plot/setting/scenario of/in the short film.
• block of credits.

Narrative:

It is clearly shown in the poster a competition related to poker or another casino game is the basic plot of the film, this is due to the set up in the lower half of the main image. The use of separating the image into individual sections for each actor with varying facial expressions portrays the idea of a competition. They are not placed together taking away the possibility of a team, along with the facial expressions showing that characters persona. The title 'A Church of Cards' is only initially significant through the word 'cards' due to the assumed casino setting, the idea of a 'Church' is religious therefore could be a possible hint to that being a part of the narrative although through the poster that is not confirmed.

Representation:

Each character has their own representation through being sectioned on the poster. None of the characters look at the camera but at each other showing the competition and suspicion that is shown in these types of games. All four men are in suits showing a formal theme, the woman looks to be smartly dressed but not in a seductive matter, which is less common in casino based films, showing her almost as an equal to the male characters - she is just as serious. 

Genre:

The genre isn't specifically clear in the poster, however it has aspects of a thriller through the dark background and separation.

Audience:

From the age of the characters - 40 to 50 years old - the target audience would be around that age or just younger 35-50years old. This is also due to the narrative of the short film, the poker seen would be more familiar with this age group.

Media Language:

In this film poster nothing is revealed to an extent, we are given little to process in terms of the films narrative/intentions. The camera work and editing of the poster is used to create a divide between the characters, each having their own frame and own personality showing off their differences. The only link made is the eye contact, even though there is no eye line match between the characters it is clear they are all aware of one another through the way they have been placed: the two males at either end are looking inward towards the other characters, and the other three are looking in different directions - each character has someone looking at them. The editing shown with the poker set up bring the context into the facial expressions along with the title 'A church of Cards' the link is clear. The lighting is low key however each character has a spotlight to highlight their facial expressions, the black background with white text contrasts and emphasises not only the title but the framing also. The title itself becomes almost unrelated, there is no obvious reason for the typography, along with what I mentioned earlier about the meaning of the title.

Wild Tales

Conventions:

• Main images - sectioned, telling a story?
• Block of credits 
• Critics reviews 
• 
  

Media Language:
The layout of this poster is different from most you see, this may be due to it being a foreign independant film however it also may be due to its possible meaning. The 6 sections could show a story/journey, they are clearly clips from the film and due to each section having a different actor/s it is highly likely that they are separate stories. Dispite the emotions in facial expressions the poster remains bright and cheerful, the white background brings out the light in the images and highlights the impact of the black text. 

Narrative:
As said above, the main image/s show various characters in vastly different settings suggesting the narrative is one based on various different stories that overall connect to a singular one. The title 'Wild Tales' also suggests this, various 'wild' stories and complete one 'tale'. From looking at the images the bottom photo is clearly a wedding due to mise en scene, primarily costume, and is the largest photo suggesting it is the main story line. The others however aren't so clear giving the audience mystery the only hints are the setting in the backgrounds, facial expressions and one quote from a review in bold "apocalyptic revenge". 

Genre:
By looking at the critics reviews:
-"tales of apocalyptic revenge. The years most fearlessly funny film"
-"Hilarious! Outrageous!"
From these it is clear the film is a comedy but otherwise looking at the pictures it isn't as clear, with the image alone it seems to be a romance or action based film. This could be correct however from the poster it is not clear. 

Audience:
The target audience for this film would be broad, however I think it is most popular with 18-25year olds due to the narrative and age range of the actors. It is also a foreign film therefore it is less likely a younger audience would be appealed by this film. It is technically rated a 15 however I don't think this film would appeal to this age.

Representation:
There is no negative representation shown in this poster, its purpose is to show the varying story lines. 

Comparing the two poster analysis' above they have similar layouts in the form of separating the poster into various sections, both successful but both conveying different meanings. This taught me the importance of colour, size and material but also the importance of using dead space. Below is my initial poster:


Poster Comparisons and development

Above is my original poster idea, I took the photo myself trying to capture an interesting angle. The title placement wasn't originally planned to be as it is on the board but as I was editing I felt it would be a good use of the picture and space. However, I struggled placing the other aspects of the conventions for the poster into the picture. This was simply due to having too many colours and angles in the back ground so it is hard to read and does not look professional but was a start. From this I gained an understanding of placement and although I like the use of the original photo and felt it looked professional it didn't work well with the other aspects needed in the poster (reviews, block of credits and actors). Even though I used the dead space of the photo to display the text, the colour of the photo was too difficult to work with as a background.

After some brainstorming the group decided to brake the rules and place the title centre rather than the corner. We kept the title concept as it works well and used the monopoly set up of the road names for the rest of the conventions. However, it is plan and takes the attention away from the title. We felt we could do more with the poster so decided to develop it further. Simplifying the poster and changing the layout made a significant difference to the poster overall: it looks neat, the text is clear and it tells the audience the right information about the film, however there was room to improve.

I made the title larger and the tile significantly bigger to draw the audiences attention there first. I moved the actors name to the top so they are still noted but less distracting, we decided to keep 2 of the tiles with their board road names to link the monopoly theme further and used the other 2 for reviews. Zoe came up with the idea to use the board game pieces to fill the dead space and further link monopoly in. We are happy with this outcome and feel the development is clear, we think it looks professional and overall represents our film well.

Similarities between our poster and a real productions:

 

(From top to bottom) You can see here in comparison to the wild tales poster we have included all of the conventions needed in a film poster, along with keeping a simplistic style. Overall I think our poster outcome is a successful representation of our film as well as being realistic compared to real life media. 

Review:

What is Little White Lies and Who Reads It?

What is Little White Lies (LWL)?

Published by a London-based creative agency - The Church of London - LWL is a Bi-monthly British independent movie magazine. Each issue of the magazine, which has been running since 2005, is inspired by one main feature film which is displayed on the cover represented by an illustration of its lead actor. The content is split into six chapters: the lead review, an editorial introduction, a series of articles inspired by the feature film, theatrical reviews, the back section and the future releases. 

     LWL is distributed throughout the UK and is stocked in shops including: WHSmith, HMV, Urban Outfitters and Fopp along with some independent cinemas. In 2010/11 they introduced and launched a LWL app which has three main components: to keep up to date with the latest thoughts and opinions from their blog, a complete archive of all reviews and a 'now showing' button which shows the nearest independent cinemas in the area and what they are currently showing.

Who Reads It?

LWL conducted a reader survey in late 2008 even though this isn't recent it gives a rough understanding of the target audience:

• The majority (51%) of the 250 UK readers are aged 25-35 and 63% were male. 
• 50% earn 0-20k, and 42% earn 20-40k. 
• 22% work in Media and 20% in Creative. 
• 72% visit the cinema 0-4 time per month.
• 32% share the magazine with 1 other person and 49% share with 2-3 people.
• 62% buy 0-4 DVDs a month.
• 54% play video games regularly.
• 93% read almost all of each issue. 
• 93% keep their copies. 

What are the Layout Conventions?

Layout Conventions:
The style of Little White Lies is referred to as a 'house style'. The main image, taken from the film, takes up the top 3rd of the page in colour and is always rectangular. Followed by title - centered underneath, in the font 'Century Gothic' - it is the largest font on the page as well as in a different colour to further show its importance. 
   Underneath this is the films information: The names of the director, the starring actors/actresses and the release date. These are in the font 'Aparajita' and the information is in italics and lowercase whilst the names and date are in bold and uppercase - all centered below the title. 
   For the review itself is all in the font 'Aparajita'. It begins with a 'drop capital' and every review has 5-6 indented paragraphs, the text is in the 'justify' format (meaning all the text is equally spaced and centered). All film titles are in italics and most actors are names in brackets, the writers name is in bold and upper case at the end of the review. 
   The 'tripartile ranking' system is their way of finalising the film, the 3 categories: anticipation, enjoyment and in retrospect are marked out of 5 and are accompanied by explanatory text on each review. In the layout it is underneath the end of the review and is kept in line with everything else so the review overall is uniform. The font continues on from the review: the titles in uppercase and underlined with the comments lowercase, however the numbers are in century gothic where they are bolder. 
    The last note on the layout is the 'Review' on the left margin in the font 'microsoft yahei' to note the section and clearly state the page is a review. Along with the page number, in 3 digits centered at the bottom. 

Dimensions:
Width: 196mm
Length: 245mm 
Each column of text is 52.4mm wide (flexible) and 107mm long.
Total text review width is 168mm x margin either side. Length is 217mm + margins top and bottom. 
The image is 70mm x 168mm (flexible). 

Observations from reading Little White Lies

Due to the ancillary task being to write a review in the format and style of the reviews published in Little White Lies, I found it necessary to take the time to read previous reviews. The style of writing is personal and informal; the writers tend to ask a variety of rhetorical questions in their reviews in order to get the audience thinking as well as sharing their honest opinion. This will be hard to achieve as we have to look at our own film- that we ourselves have produced - from an outsiders angle. 

      Some reviews take small parts of the film to talk about in detail on whether they have or haven't worked out whereas some are more factual about the narrative, I assume this depends on the films genre/narrative along with the writer themselves, but either way it is giving me a clearer view on how to approach this task. Others have comedic touches, and hints of sarcasm mimicking the movies aura; in a review for the film 'Submarine' the writer says "...sometimes pretends to have Cotard's syndrome: a type of autism, hes dictionary tells him, that convinces people they are dead" it is factual information about the film but the added in detail makes reference to the film as well as making it informal. 
       What appears in all of the reviews are the use of brackets when referencing films and actors as well as italics for film titles. As we know all the reviews have the same layout of appearance but from reading individual ones it is clear to see they each add their own characteristics therefore, when writing my own review I aim to be personal with my writing and make it my own. 
       Reading Little White Lies has helped me further understand the style they produce and what I need to aim for when it comes to writing my own. 

Here you can see our review compared to a printed LWL review. Overall we are proud of our outcome and feel it could be printed in the magazine. All of the conventions match and we feel our target audience would benefit from this review. 


















Question 2:

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Our target audience ranges between the ages of 17-25 we are more familiar with the needs/interests of this audience due to being a part of it. Having strong knowledge allowed us to make certain decisions with ease, but also we could reach out to people in our audience with no problems. In my opinion our film is aimed at both genders, this is because both enjoy thriller films and none of our marketing is stereotyped toward one gender. 

Our audience feedback helped to guide our decisions throughout the process. We created a survey on the website 'survey monkey' from this we gathered information from our target audience in the early stages of our research and planning in pre production. 

Answer: Yes

Answer: Agree

 The overall feedback from the questions were as we hoped/expected and were positive for our decisions. towards the timelapse concept for our film the feedback was heavily positive and appealed to the audience, we feel its our strongest decision for our film as it does help to speed up time but in an interesting and engaging way.

Answer: Yes

Eventhough the outcome isn't 'strongly agree' we feel the audience still has a positive response to this question and have some doubts therefore we kept wary of it and researched it further to make sure we could have a strong impact on our audience.  

There wasn't any disagree/strongly disagree therefore the audience may have struggled with understanding the question or felt wary with their answers but it is a good response overall.








This was an important question for our research as it was the titled we favoured overall, from the audience feedback here we can see it is to the majority yes. Even though we had some no's and a selection of people were unsure we felt it was still a positive outcome and decided it was a good name for our monopoly themed short film.









We gathered further audience feedback once the film was complete:

 We had a range in positives and negatives which we were all overall happy with because they were points we agreed on. When it comes to acting it is slightly out of our control however the reactions could have been improved as some have pointed out, to improve this we would take the time to re-record certain situations (mainly the revilement of money) and encourage the actors to be more natural and confident with body language and facial expressions.

This is our favoured feedback from our audience as it really points out and explain our strengths and weaknesses. In reponse to this:
1. as said above we would re film this and improve on how natural the setting and reactions are. 
2. audio was a problem for us, we used an external microphone to record the dialogue but when it came to editing it wasn't clear enough as we didn't pay enough attention to it and didn't have enough experience with it to use effectively. To improve on this we would practice with the external mics and make sure sound is checked throughout the recording process. 

3. Another strong response to the timelapse sequences.

4. We thought about doing this idea however didn't prioritise it in our post production editing therefore to improve we would take the time to do this and make it more interesting for the target audience.











Overall we are happy with our film, and see improvement can be achieved. The audience feedback we received took an impact in our thinking and decision making especially in the pre production stages.

Question 4:

Prezi