Kristina's Media Moments

After uploading our film to YouTube and showcasing it on social networking site facebook and to friends and colleauges we asked them to give us some feedback on what they thought about our short film.

This is some of the things they said:

Generally a nice love story, bit sad that he didn’t get more than a key and the door in his face. But suppose he can come and go as often as he wants now...

Liked the concept, story ran smoothly – could have been slightly more ‘off the wall’ / ‘in depth’

What’s the matter with texting? – See loves not dead, it was good, bit long winded though.

Just go to the door don’t just stand outside! and rather like him I didn’t get what the key was for I cant help feeling that they would have been so happy to have confessed their love that they would have snogged not just given him a key and slam the door in his face but I guess the story isn’t important its the making of the film, it was good

I think the major thing I notice is that the sound editing is very choppy. That is to say that whenever the audio track changes there is a slight popping sound. Although as an upshot the lighting is rather fantastic. The whole thing is really awesome I also really liked the camera movement it helped add a more dynamic feel to it - there aren't any glaring problems from a purely technical standpoint.

From looking at these notes, we realised that the sound was quite out of sync and this could have been improved as well as the use of the voice over to help portray the story and the meaning of the story as it was not quite understandable. However overall the feedback was positive as a short film overall, and most managed to understand most of what it was about.

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

When creating our short film we decided on the genre of romance, we followed the conventions of this genre by creating a boy/girl scenario that has them being split apart but a happy ending, as it were.
Here are the finished products :

We also used the hearts and kisses on the notes or signs to show this genre. We did also challenge conventions in the use of signs in that it wasn’t a modern form of communication such as text message or as simple as going to the door at first as there was the window as a barrier but he had to get her attention first. The music we used also helps to connote the meaning of love and romance as its light and bouncy with a happy feel to it almost like the tingle you feel when in love. The short films I had looked at in researching for our film did not really match our ideas as it was quite a new idea however it was similar to the communication barriers. I did find a couple of short films where they also used signs but it was in relation to the workplace and sort of office romances. Our idea also followed the ideas from the music video by Taylor Swift where they successfully transferred messages through signs as ours also did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw

Due to the problems with our filming we couldn't use the bedroom as we had first planned like a paper plane flying through the window and so instead we used a kitchen, which had all the everyday accessories in it including the washing up - which we used to show the typical role of a woman seen as the housewife as it begins with her doing the housework and recieving the first message through the window. When we were trying to film through the windows the natural light was reflecting off the window so we had to shine a spotlight onto it in order to be able to see through it. This caused continuity errors as the windows were different however if the location had been set up first and we realised the problems we would have had these may have been able to have been overcome perhaps if it was a first floor bedroom with no natural light bouncing off windows such as being in the shadow of a house.

The use of the editing process means that the parts all follow on from one another despite being filmed separately and at different times such as the movement between signs, this is thanks to new technology enabling us to not have to film everything in a linear sequence, this was very helpful as filming was a problem. Our poster and article also follow in using conventions of romance genre film posters and articles as with other posters we saw the theme was based around hearts and light colouring, a design style we also followed through the use of light or blocks of colour. We used a more typical layout for the article with few columns but continuous text with breaks in the interview questions, we also add slight call outs with the use of hearts and a metal key in the centre of a heart to tie into the idea of holding the key to someone's heart. The pictures could maybe have been taken better to fit the article layout and design as the picture of a sign being held up could be from anything in general and as you cannot see the other character it makes it mysterious but also confusing. Due to the problems we incurred during filming however this was hard to avoid and with better planning the three products could have been linked better.

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

I think that the combination of our main product and ancillary texts work well together incorporating ideas of love and communication and how body language and the actions we do can be portrayed in different ways or taken in different ways. The use of the colours in the poster and article help to portray the romance theme and tie in with the film itself as the girl wears the key around her neck which is the key to her heart that is incorporated into the design of the ancillary texts. The main theme around the 3 was the key to the heart, shown clearly in all 3, the use of the similar catchphrases about the key in the poster and article also tie these together. The use of similar colour schemes on the poster and article tie them together along with the use of the paper, which reflects on the idea of the messages being sent between the two characters in the film.

By using a genre and subject that appeals to most people, as love is something everyone goes through at some point not just in the sense of an intimate relationship, we think we will attract our target audience well with the use of the poster design which uses no pictures from the film. I feel it makes you want to read it and ask what it is about, the article gives you more of an idea as it is an interview with a director and although giving a lot of the film away tells the messages in the short film a reason that people may want to watch it to see how this is portrayed. I think that the poster is possibly the strongest product which has a very professional design and incorporates all the ideas really well; followed by the article in the use of the hearts and its overall design yet the pictures used could have been better and the background could have been slightly stronger as when it was changed colour in photoshop it looked slightly blurred. I think I would change the film to have had a beginning credits or intro as there is nothing to begin with to lure the audience in and on the article I would make the text straighter and further over from the centre as mentioned earlier in my blog if it were in a magazine and in the centre where stapled, parts may be cut off. Overall I think that the article and poster would effectively promote the film as the design, layout and content of both help to promote the ideas within the film and the film itself, something which when doing audience research they said an underlying message was a good thing to have and many of the other texts and designs for promoting feature length films used similar techniques as ours.
Here are the examples of posters in comparison to ours.

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After getting some feedback from people who had viewed our short film, it gave me chance to reflect the work and it helped me realise that although our concept for the film was good, the planning and research then making of them film lacked, as well as there being problems with the filming and having to change things last minute. The editing of the film could have been improved by matching the sound and cuts better as well as the fades etc and using different techniques, as well as using better techniques in the overall filming to help in showing the full story as it was clear that much of it was not understandable. The use of the voiceover was introduced to help show the story yet failed to still fully show the extent of the story and the characters and was not fully understandable, the sound could also have been improved in the recording as despite being the same girl in the voiceover she talks completely differently in one part and is quite abrupt in others about the story, which wasn't quite the aim and so better actors could also have improved the film. Despite all its pitfalls however there were a lot of comments and praise about the idea behind the film and some of the filming was very good, so overall I was pleased with the outcome, despite the problems we had.
These are the questionnaires we had used in our audience research, this was important to target our audience through our article and poster. They reflect the idea that an underlying message was important, however many films don't complete their marketing ideas until completion which we had to do to wait for the complete film with characters, photos and full storyline. An example of this is with trainspotting where they did not know how to market it until they were complete.

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

Throughout the course of my media project I have used different media technologies. The use of computers has to be the biggest and most used technology for research, design, editing and distribution of our short film. The convergence of technologies from the digital cameras, my camera phone and the digital camcorders I have connected everything together through technology. I used the PC first to research short films both on search engines such as Google and on social networking sites such as YouTube where I found examples of other related short films and gained ideas to brainstorm our own idea. Not forgetting the important updates to my blog using the computers.

We then used digital cameras to take photos of our work and our storyboards to upload them and make animated storyboards which were then uploaded to my blog along with other converged materials such as my PowerPoint on lighting and other pictures of our continuing progress of work and filming. This leads me on to the filming where we used digital camcorders to film and then uploaded the footage to a PC to edit on Sony Vegas software, whilst also creating the backing track using Audacity music software also on a PC. This image shows the use of publisher in the design of the article layout.

The finished product was then uploaded onto YouTube and promoted personally through my Facebook account to gain audience feedback. This also shows how we can communicate through the internet to gain feedback on texts as well as promote them as well as with the poster and article which would be printed out but were created using Photoshop and Publisher software on the Computers, all this software and media technology converges in it all being used together and linked through the various sites and blogs such as with web 2.0. I thought this image effectively showed how published content can then get feedback instantly and be broadcast to a wide number of people on various sites.The use of computers has made the overall planning and production of our product much easier, we were able to communicate with one another easily outside of college as well as work on pieces at home and have been able to create and edit the whole thing much quicker than it would have taken when everything was analogue and film reels would need slicing and it would have had to have been filmed in a linear sequence. With this my IT skills have improved in learning to use new software and expand on skills on software I already used such as Photoshop from my media work from AS level to A2 level and was able to layer and place objects etc much easier than last year when it took me a while to get the hang of it. As far as media technologies are concerned we have had little in the way of problems other than it being difficult to upload certain files and images to the blog for updates etc. We did have problems in terms of our filming process as we had to re-film it all however this was due to location and lighting so we were to use a light the second time round, we also had to re-take photos etc as our actress changed.

However overall I think our media product is a good love story based on the idea of holding the key to someone’s heart as well as the barriers of communication in love. Although our filming has continuity errors and could have been better or restrictions on time limit and locations available as well as having no budget means we could have done it better had it been a real media product, therefore, as it is it would work well for showcasing on the internet etc but would need improving to be entered into short film contests such as the virgin media short film awards.