Initial Treatment ideas

Title - Big Cats

Duration - 5minutes

Audience- Male and female, suitable for all ages, rated PG, suitable for people interested in animals

Synopsis- A documentary about a group of 12 lions that came over from Romania due to them being kept in poor condition and suffering from ill health. This documentary shows footage of the life they had in Romania and then real life footage from their new home in Doncaster. It will show what the lions are fed, their daily routine, interviews with the keepers and also the story of how a girls dream came true when she adopted the oldest lion of the pack, Cezar.

We decided not to do this documentary because it would have been extremely hard to get to Doncaster and also hard to get permision to film near to the lions. Also, it would have been dificult to film in the park at i time convinient for us whilst the park was quiet.




Title - Behind Bars

Duration - 5 Minutes

Audience - Males and females, suitable for teenagers and adults, rated 15

Synopsis - This is a documentary about an alcoholics downward spiral into theft and prison. This documentary follows Ben sabin, an alcoholic as he strugles to fund his habbit and turns to stealing from family and friends instead until he finaly gets landed in prison. Follow Ben's experience behind bars as he struggles to cope.

We also decided not to do this documentary either because it would have been extremley difficult to set us a scene that looked like a prison due to the fact we wouldn't be able to film in a prison.

Critical Evaluation - Laura

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

Internet
I used media technologies consistently throughout the entire process of creating our short film. I used the internet on both normal computers and Apple Macs to help with the research stage, using websites such as http://www.google.co.uk/, http://www.youtube.com/ and http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ to help with similar film research and classification guidelines. This gave us an idea of how to make sure our film would both appeal to and suit the target audience. ‘Youtube’ also helped with the creativity of our film as it allowed us to upload it and then collect screen shots of our film to use on our blog. It also came in useful with the overall evaluation of our film, as it allowed us to link it to http://www.facebook.com/ and ask members of our target audience to watch it and give feedback as to the suitability, successfulness and overall strengths and weaknesses of our film.

I used the internet to create our blog on http://www.blogger.com/ of overall work from our project by uploading video clips, screen shots and photos, text and hyperlinks. This website allowed us to be more creative as it meant that we could create our own format for our blog to make it more suited for our project and also use HTML codes to change the font and layout of each post to make the presentation more professional.

Equipment
We used a Sony HDV 1000 camera to film our project. The advantages of it were that it had a built in microphone, which meant we didn’t have to record the film and sound separately, and that when editing we could use the sound from different shots to fit alongside each other to ensure smooth editing and continuation. The auto focus feature meant that we didn’t have to worry about manually changing the focus of the camera to suit the location we were filming at, or the shot we were filming – this in turn made the filming process a lot simpler and less time consuming. The camera is a semi-professional camera and is therefore quite large which meant that we had to be careful that it wasn’t visible in reflections from windows and mirrors as this would have made our film less professional. Also, some of the rooms we filmed in were quite small, so finding an effective position for the camera and tripod proved quite difficult at times. I used a Cannon PowerShot A3150 digital camera to take photos to upload to the blog, for things such as the character profile. We used a Zoom Microphone sound recorder to record our radio trailer, it recorded a crisp and smooth sound which we used along side sections of sound from our film. The Zoom recorder also came in useful as a different method for recording audience feedback, as it meant that they were more comfortable in answering honestly - they weren't staring down a camera. I think the range of different media equipment which were available for me to use really helped develop the creativity of our film overall, and also the planning, research and construction of it. Not only was technology used in the creation of our film, but within it too, through the use of mobile phones. They played a key part of our film as they help create the dramatic irony, where the audience thinks something is happening which is different to what the characters think. The computers which we used were Apple Macs. These are a lot more advanced than regular computers, and allowed us to develop our work more creatively as they allow the use of a wider range of software, in much finer quality. The speed at which the Macs work is also much better than a normal computer and allowed us to upload and edit much more quickly, therefore making the entire task much less time consuming.

Software
We used ‘Final Cut Express’ to edit our shots and create our final film. This software allowed us to piece together the different shots of our film, fine tune the continuity to make sure it looks as professional as possible and also enabled us to be more creative with the use of special effects such as varied shot transition. Also, the software enabled us to use the sound from one shot alongside a different one, which made editing scenes such as the conversation in ‘The Bistro’ a lot easier, as we could match the sound with the image perfectly. Also, 'Final Cut Express' allowed us to create the titles and end credits for our film, and to select special effects for the text that make it more interesting and professional. Another software programme which I used was ‘Photoshop Elements 8’ which we used to create our film posters, using photos and stills from our film to create an advertisement which would attract a larger audience. Another software programme we used was ‘Garageband’ which we used to help create our radio trailer. It allowed us to balance the voice over and the music to create an effective trailer that gave the listener enough information to get them interested in watching our film.
I also used 'Microsoft Word' to write the posts as it has tools such as spell check and more advanced text editing settings which allowed me to ensure my posts were all fully complete and grammatically correct. I used 'Microsoft Paint' when I was at home and didn't have access to an Apple Mac and 'PhotoShop' as it allowed me to add captions to photos before I put them on the blog. It also meant that I could combine images to one file rather than uploading each image seperately. The internet providers that I used to gain access to the websites previously mentioned were 'Internet Explorer' when I was using my computer and 'Firefox' when I was using the Macs at college. I found that 'Firefox' processed information a lot faster, and I had less errors and problems uploading websites when I was using that one, which helped our creativity as it meant that we could get more productive research, planning, editing and evaluating done without having to constantly solve connection issues etc.

I think that all these different types of media technologies helped us develop our film creatively, and without the software and media equipment that we used we wouldn’t have been able to achieve such a successful project. There were some restrictions to the equipment such as the size of the camera, and the fact that it picked up buzzing sounds below the speaking which was difficult to solve. Another restriction was within the plot of the film, we wanted to include a scene where Leanne and Rachel were watching their secret filming through the television, but we didn’t have the right equipment to enable us to do this, so instead we used a different shot angle and a special effect, adjusted the script and shooting script slightly to imply that this is what is happening without actually showing it.

In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Continuity and editing are key when it comes to creating a realistic and professional finish to a film. Whether that be through the content in the film such as costumes, or how it is linked together and edited. In the planning stage of our project we wrote a shooting script ( http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/shooting-script.html ) with a list of the shots, and a symbolised map of where the equipment and actors will be which helped massively when it came to producing it. I think that in terms of continuity and editing our media product develops the conventions of real media products well, as the transitions between shots are all smooth, with matches on shape where possible. An example of this would be when Ben leaves the bedroom, Rachel is in a similar place in the shot we see her come down the stairs. This makes it easier for the eye to follow what is happening on screen, in terms of the image rather than the story and means that the audience are less likely to become distracted by bad edits.
The genre of our film is dramatic romance. Therefore the conventions of this are quite particular as far as content goes. Most, if not all romance films show a couple who meet and fall in love, with an event which causes upset. Our film fits this plot convention, as it has the twist of Rachel’s suspicions of her boyfriend being wrong. I think that it fulfils the nature of the film genre to a certain extent however the twist and irony within the plot go against what the audience is expecting to happen. I think that we created very realistic and believable characters for our film, with each character's personality and role within the film shown through what they said. When creating our script we kept it closely linked with our original character profiles ( http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/character-profiles.html ) to make sure our characters had direction within the story, and were individual rather than 'samey'. Inkeeping with the generic convetions of romance films, the female leading character is madly in love with her partner, however has an aire of jealousy and obsession over him. Her boyfriend, Ben, who is the leading male role, doesn't seem to play much of a part in terms of appearances on screen, however the whole story is about him. I think that as the target audience of our piece is teenagers, mainly girls, we successfully created characters which they would be able to empathise with. We thought it was important that as the target audiene is so easily influenced and involved in TV programmes and film, we created characters that they would easily loose themselves in, and maybe see similarities between the characters or the storyline to something which they are experiencing.
Within our film, there is no deliberate pastiche or parody, we have tried to create a short film which is quite original and would therefore be different from the other films available on the market. I think that the twist in the story is so unexpected to the audience that it is quite unlike most others. I think that had we tried to make our film funny, it would have detracted from the overall storyline and would therefore have changed everthing we had planned, from the genre right down to the target audience.
Our film aims to create tension and suspense for the audience. I think the ambiguous twist in the plot helps to achieve this. As the audience are lead to follow Rachel’s suspicions, but in the end turn out to be totally wrong.

This is the trailer for the film 'Matilda'. It is a similar film to ours, in that it uses detectives to spy on the male lead character. This film ties in comedy as well as drama rather than romance however that is because it has a different target audience. The trailer uses a similar method as we did for our radio trailer. It has a combination of different shots from the film, with snippets of the funniest parts, however also has voice overs; both from different parts of the film and also from a completely different person. This gives an idea of what the film is about and also gives all the information the audience needs.

How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary tasks?
The aim of our main production was to create short film in its entirety which lasted approximately 5 minutes. Therefore, in our main production we had to try to achieve this initial task, but also come up with a piece which would successfully capture and maintain the attention of an audience. We wanted to create a film which would attract a wide audience, and therefore chose the genre according to its popularity. We created to products along side our main piece, as ancillary tasks, which would work as advertisements for our main film.
I think that as the first of the 2 ancillary tasks, the film poster which we created as a group captures what we were trying to achieve. It has an interesting picture from the film and shows enough information about our film to attract an audience without giving too much away, and therefore makes the audience want to watch it to find out what happens. We used only the key information such as the tag line so that we didn't overload the audience and in turn make them ignore or dismiss it. I think our poster links nicely to the radio advert as this also give little snippets of what happens in the film however through sound off the film rather than the imagery, but also has a voice over to give the information the audience would need. We had to be careful that the audience didnt confuse the voice over with the sound from the film, and therefore chose a voice which is totally different to the main characters. Also, to define the difference between the two we made sure that there was a totally different tone in the voice of the voice over. I think that both ancillary tasks promote and sell our production well, with intriguing images and sound.
I did research into existing advertising products, in particular the poster and looked at conventions and features which were common to them all. I think that we achieved a very professional finish on our poster in terms of how the main image is edited, and that our radio trailer is also really effective. I think that the fact that our film doesn’t include any famous actors means a lack in the information provided on the film, such as those who are starring in it, but I think our poster is excellent, when put in context and purpose.

This is the existing poster design that I looked at. It uses a location/establishing shot, to give an idea of the setting of the film, and also uses close ups of the two main characters. The poster was similar to ours as it gave the relevant information such as release dates, however went into more detail such as the production team and celebrity actors.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When we were first given out initial brief one of the first steps of the planning stage was to carry out audience research. The first stage was to look at the British Board of Film Classification guidelines for a film with the same age rating as ours, which I found at www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/12a12 . After looking at their recommendations of what is suitable to be shown to an audience of this age, and what would be seen as unsuitable or offensive I then created a questionnaire with a short summary of the plot initially came up with, which I gave to a few members of our planned target audience and asked them to complete. It gave us an idea of what people are looking for in a film, what time of characters they thought would fit best within our planned plot, and what would appeal to them and therefore be successful when created. The fact that they had a say in the characters which we used and developed in our film meant that when the audience came to watch the final product they empathised well with the characters, and sided with Rachel. This then made the twist at the end of the story a suprise and unexpected by the audience as they expect Ben to have been cheating. The questions I asked people can be found at: www.welovea2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/audience-research-questionairre.html . This helped us generate characters, and eventually a script that would fit the expectations and preferences of the people who would be potentially viewing our finished film.
We also did face-to-face interviews using the Zoom microphone recording kit with a wider, less specific sample of the audience to gain spoken evidence of what they would expect. This time we used males, rather than just teenage girls like the questionairre.
After creating and successfully editing our film, we created a final set of questions to ask members of the audience as soon as they had watched our final version. One way in which this evaluative audience feedback had a massive influence on the creation and editing of our film was that it highlighted the problems we had overlooked within our final version. We decided that it was unclear that Leanne and Rachel are watching back hand-filmed secret footage through the television when they are at Leanne’s house due to the fact that we had no effect to show the difference in shot. Therefore, after the initial feedback of it being slightly unclear we added a special effect over the shot, to make it look dissimilar to the rest and therefore generated our deffinate end product. I think that overall the changes we made after our audience feedback will make sure the audience interpret the film in the way we intended them to when they see the finished product.
Throughout the main body of our film there is a chance of different possible interpretations as to what is happening, which is deliberate, however I wouldn’t say such differing interpretations would be due to different cultural situations. I think our film would be mutually understood by people from all cultures and backgrounds; however people with certain life experiences may find the plot easier to empathise with than others. Overall, I would say that our media product, and ancillary tasks successfully fulfill the inital task that was given to us; in that we have created a 5 minute film in its entirity and have stuck closesly to the preferences and expectations of the target audience throughout all stages, from the enitial planning and research to the creation and editing.

Critical Evaluation - Soph B

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

As our genre is drama, I feel we filled this genre successfully with our film. Our plot and character ideas were easily understood - a misunderstanding female lead, made to sound jealous yet make you feel sympathetic towards her, feels insecure in her relationship when her partner has been spending less time with her as of recent. Ben, the male lead is made to be seen as secretive towards the audience, but little does everyone know, he is not doing what they think he is, and he just didn't see what it could look like to everyone else. Then comes the private investigator, Leanne, who has a kind confidence at first yet similar outlook on Rachael's situation. However once the characters meet up again and chat, Leanne's real character unfolds and she is quite manipulative of what Rachael does, behaving quite un-professional in the situation. With our genre not being out of the ordinary, yet still quite thrilling, we tried to make our surroundings and costumes etc. as realistic as possible.

Our target audience was young girls, as they may be able to relate to the storyline and feelings of insecurity and paranoia better than anyone else. They may be pleased by certain parts in the film, like the way Leanne and Rachael team up against Ben, this shows strong females, especially in the last scene when Rachael and Ben come to blows. The way in which Ben proves the audience wrong may also please them, giving them hope against what the earlier parts of the film may have made them feel.

As with all films, editing and continuity are main features of them. Continuity is really important so the film runs smoothly. We experienced some problems in getting this right. For example, the scene in which Leanne and Rachael are spying on Savannah and Ben had to be shot twice, because of snow. The second time was a good street, as the cars were parked up and close enough together to get a good shot from the back seat of the cars. However, the pub scene followed closely after that was a little more tricky. With the pub being on a main road, traffic flow was unavoidable. Also, the ground on which the camera was on was uneven, and outside a busy fish shop! It didn't take us many takes of the scene though, and we managed to work around and with our surroundings. Also, inside the actual pub was difficult, which is the reason the scene is so short, and there's not a lot of dialogue. It was a busy Friday afternoon, and the music, talking and playing of pool don't add to the quality of sound.

In our film, we want the audience to relate to and feel for the main female lead, Rachael, and depending on the way you use the editing, we can make this happen. In the opening scene, a medium shot in which Ben turns his back on Rachael while they're in bed, making him seem like he's withdrawing himself, with Rachael looking rejected. In the next couple of shots, they have a small argument and Ben opens the curtains and Rachael stays in bed. The new lighting shows more emotion on Rachael's face, however she still looks rejected and hurt. Also in these shots, you don't see Ben's face much, and only for a glimpse when he seems angry at Rachael, meaning the attention is on her and you feel sorry for her.

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

In this years production, we have portrayed a story in which the audience is made to side with the main character, Rachael, the main female character who is more than convinced her partner Ben is being adulterous - sympathetic towards her and feeling bad towards him. We thought it was important to also portray this within both our film poster and radio trailer, as then not to give the surprise twist away before a person sees the film, as Ben is actually planning to propose, and Rachael seems crazed. The film poster tagline is 'there's a fine line between love and obsession'. I think this is good, as it doesn't give too much away yet there is also a glimpse that there's something further to the story than a paranoid girlfriend and her cheating man. The pictures chosen show Ben walking towards his car with Savannah, a work colleague, which sparks the female fear. However there is also a photo of Rachael in the car with her private investigator, in the same setting and a little *rec in the corner, to show the boyfriend is being spied on. The way the words 'love' and 'obsession' join together shows the 'fine line' there is supposed to be, intertwined as they are in the film. The spying element is also shown, in the way there is no photo of the couple together, but separately and in separate situations, as if they are against each other.

We also did a radio trailer in the same way, so the audience feel sorry for the female. It works well as when Ben does speak, he sounds as though he's being harsh towards Rachael, who sounds in despair when she speaks. The mixture of voiceover and lines from the film is a perfect blend, as it doesn't give too much of the film away, yet the lines we chose give you an idea of the plot itself. It is short and simple, including the tagline, 'at which point does suspicion become paranoia'. I think this gives the audience an idea that everything is not what it seems, as does the writing on the poster. Here is a link to our radio trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aLaQt6njZo. As it was hard to find radio trailers online, we looked for inspiration towards actual movie trailers. Here is a link to 'Obsessed' Film Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXk6H17Ecjw. This is a similiar film to ours, yet is more thriller than drama, because of the sexual content and violence in this. The cuts in the trailer are effective, yet at times confusing to the audience if the events aren't understood. However, I think it sells the film well.

3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

With the original brief that was given, we came up with many ideas and eventually we decided to do a short film based on romance, somewhere with the use of a private investigator storyline. We rounded up people to fill out our audience research questionnaire, the link to which is www.welovea2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/audience-research-questionairre.html. This would help us understand what kinds of things people wanted to see from a film, how they felt about topics such as swearing and violence, making us more successful in the creation of our film. As you can see, this person answered the question on swearing with 'when it is overused' giving us the idea not to use too much, but maybe once or twice for dramatic effect where the swearing would be acceptable. We decided to use 'bastard', the only swear word that appears during our film, as it is an appropriate time and situation in our film, to just suitably shock the audience. We also recorded people speaking about our film, but these weren't as successful and open as the questionnaires were, as maybe these people felt pressured into saying good things.

For the actual audience feedback once the film was complete, we all used different ways of collecting it, to find out which was the best method. Sophie A recorded people speaking, but once again this proved to bring a similar outcome as the people were nervous and may have felt under pressure so as not to offend. Laura used a social networking site, Facebook, to gather hers and I feel this was the most effective.
People really went into detail about what they thought, and lots of people replied. With you not being there when they are watching the film, they were able to form true unaltered opinions, without feeling pressured to spare your feelings. The same with Rhiannon's questions, she used e-mail. Although she emailed friends and family, not being able to see Rhiannon herself will have meant they put what they truly thought. I however, sat family and friends at a computer, and then asked them to fill questions in on paper. Because I was sat at the side of them, this probably added to the lack of detail into what was wrong and what could be improved with our film. However, people closest are the most likely to give constructive criticism and not just criticism! For example, quite a few people commented on the music not fitting well in the final cut, so we changed it just in time. Most of my feedback was positive, with the odd comment on how the lighting could have been improved, and a little continuity problem at the beginning. As we chose an open ending, people commented on how they wanted the film to be longer so they saw what happened next. This is great as it proves we captured our audience exactly how we wanted to.

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

Throughout the creation of our film and blog, I have used many media technologies. As a start, I used the Internet for the research and development of our film. At home I use Opera and Internet Explorer, however at college I use Mozilla Firefox. Google is the main search engine I use.
I used all these things to research similar films, posters and radio trailers. We also used it to find information on private investigators, as this was a completely new topic to us, this was the best idea so we didn't go into it with no knowledge whatsoever.

Another reason for the Internet was posting our work on Blogger. This is to upload the things we would normally write using pens and paper. The advantages of this are; once you have created work, you can edit it whenever you want to, it keeps work safe and all in one place and with order such as dates and who did what. The disadvantages are, if you don't have a connection to the Internet, you can't work on Blogger. Here is a screen shot of the Blogger dashboard. You can also upload photos, videos and links. Here is a link to our blog http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/

To capture and shoot our film we used a Sony HDV (which stands for high definition video) camera, which records onto HDV tapes. This meant our filming was very good quality and much clearer than a normal video camera. The camera allowed us to make adjustments to lighting and balance, meaning we could make it look even more professional. The camera isn't too big, however trying to get it to and from places on public transport, it seems bigger! Thankfully, most of the time we had cars. The microphone was attached to the camera, therefore the further away the people, the quieter the sound etc., so sound continuity was hard to get right.

Editing our film we used the Apple Mac computers in college, uploading our film onto the computer using a DV recorder and a tape was difficult because of the wires and connection getting lost. The editing software we used was Final Cut Express. This was a normally easy and clear software to use, as everything is clearly labelled, although some of the font is too small. We were able to do zoom, cut, fade and cross, making for a more professional finish.

To record our radio trailer, we used a zoom recorder to get the voice over, as we didn't want to use all clips from the film. The zoom recorder was difficult to use at first as the buttons weren't labeled, and it wasn't understandable what each one did. It was also hard to judge how close the person should talk into the zoom recorder, without it being too loud or quiet, and without feedback. The recorder also ran out of charge. Once we had our recording, we used Garage Band to tune and edit the recording, creating our radio trailer.

Critical Evaluation - Rhiannon

IN WHAT WAYS DOES THE MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCT?
In any film continuity and editing is important but more so in a drama i feel as the way the film is editied helps create the tension needed. Also the way the film is editied can make the audience side with one particular character over the other. For example in our film we wanted the audience, which would be most likely females, to empathise with Rachael in our film. We wanted to do this because the story in our film is one that probably many females have been through in their lifetime. To be able to make the audience empathise with Rachael, we made sure that she was the main focus all the way through the film with Ben blending into the background more. The way we made the audience focus on Rachael in one part of the film is by having a medium shot of Rachael while she is speaking to him and only seeing the back of Ben as he walks away.
There is evidence of this in the link at 41 seconds in.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AuntieSoph?blend=2&ob=5#p/u/0/YYCnqmkkDxE


Another example from the same scene is by having Rachael in a medium close up shot for approximatley 11 seconds, which makes the audience notice her and almost feel like they are there with her, but only having Ben walk into the medium close up shot then turning and walking away straight away so there's not as much focus on him.

Some of the typical conventions of continuity editing are:
Establishing shot-

Shot reverse shot-

Eyeline match -
Those are examples of three of the typical editing conventions that we incorporated in our film and i also found a similar eyeline match in the film Matilda.

This is a similar eyeline match because of the way Matilda is pointing just like the way Rachael is pointing in our film. These are both great eyeline matches because of the fact the actors are pointing, its makes the audience intrigued to know what they are pointing at.

Our film doesnt purposely challenge the conventions of a typical drama because we liked how dramas work. We liked the fact that they portray real life situations, and real life characters. The fact that the main way to interact and engage with the audience is through the intense characters rather than special effects ect was perfect for us being a2 media students and not having the right kind of editing software to be able to create shocking special effects. We reflected the typical generic conventions of a drama by having the audience believe in Rachael and believe along with her that Ben was a cheat. I think to be able to create this kind of belief just through the was we edited the film to have all the focus on Rachael, that is what you would find in a typical drama.
There was no moments where we hinted at a reference to another film because we wanted our film to be unique and couldn't find any like ours! We didn't deliberatley have any elements of pastiche or parody in our film because we wanted it to be a modern and different from any other film. If we had tried to make the film funny or hint references to other films then it wouldn't have had the same intense effect on the audience.
We tried to create the most audience pleasure through the twist at the end of our film. Many women will have watched our film and be able to relate to it and may will have just got pleasure from that. However we wanted to show the lengths some women will go to when they think they're right, and wanted to shock the audience into realising that as much as you think you might be right, there might also be a perfectly good explanation for it. From the audience feedback we got im pretty sure we managed to acheive the effect on the audience we intended.

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

In our main production we were trying to convey that there is a fine line between thinking you're right and being right. In our film we made the audience side with Rachael and believe also that Ben was cheating however that wasn't the case at all. Ben was planning to ask Rachael to marry him but she had got the wrong end of the stick and we wanted to teach the audience a lesson. From our main production we wanted to achieve the mystery and suspence expected from a typical drama. I think this was reflected through our film trailor by the main tag line. "At what point does suspision become paranoia" This gives the audience a hint from the very start that theres something not quite right. It leaves a slight confusion over why Rachaels suspicion is makin her so paranoid and will draw the audience in. Also in the film trailor by using parts of the film it makes it more real for the audience, we decided to use the line "i really think he's cheating on me" that is going to make all the women that can relate to that situation want to watch the film to find out why Rachael thinks he's cheating.
This is a link to our radio trailer on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aLaQt6njZo
I think the two pictures on our poster convey what we want people to expect of the film before they see it. By having the record sign on the top picture of Ben and Savannah getting into the car, this compliments the effect the radio trailer creates on the audience.
By using a radio trailor instead of a film trailor it manages to keep secrets from the audience which is a good thing when trying to promote a product so you don't give the whole plot away. I think the radio trailer that we made managed to give out just enough information, by combining extracts from our film and also a voice over. By using voice extracts from our film this gives the audience a slight idea of whats to come but they're still left in the dark about the true storyline. With film trailors its hard to hide part of the mystery because alot of the plot is given away by being able to see the action, not just hearing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsD0NpFSADM
This is a link to "500 days of summer film trailor" and because it's so long, the audience already know too much about the film and theres not alot of the storyline left to guess.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
With the original brief that was given, out of the many versatile ideas we came up with we felt that a private investigaters plot would be the right way to go. After speaking to many different people we decided to come up with a romance drama, with Rachael thinking her boyfriend Ben is cheating on her and hires a private investigator. We gave people questionnaires to fill in to give us a better understanding of what people would expect from our film. As you can see in an example of one of the answers we got back, people said that they didnt mind swearing being in the film and as a group we felt that putting that one swear word in "bastard" shocked the audience and that was a way of portraying violence without being violent. it had a good effect of the audience and if we hadn't have listened to our original audience feedback maybe we would have lost some of the effect on the audience that the film had. We also recorded what people expected of our film but found that they wern't as open with their answers because they felt under pressure to say what they thought we wanted them to say.

The way we managed to ensure there was plenty of meaning in our film was to portray the real life characteristics of the actors through the on-screen characters. The fact that i (Rachael)was actually in a relationship with the actor who played Ben, i felt that that helped alot because we had natural chemistry and didn't have to pretend so it didn't look fake on screen. As Rachael was the main focus in the film and i played Rachael we all felt that it was important for me to have a big input in the script as i was going to be the one acting it out. As much as we had wrote the script, whilst rehearsing and filming we felt that some of the lines didn't sound right with our accent and it sounded more natural to say it a different way so went with our instinct and said it how we thought best and how we thought would be best for the film. It's important for the actors to feel comfortable in what they are saying and doing to make the characters believeable and create a connection with the audience by the acting flowing and seeming real.

Acording to the script Leanne should have said "what are you going to say to him" however because we had already planned that Rachael was going to burst through the door and start shouting at Ben straight away it made more sens to change what Leanne said and that was the first thing we came up with and it fitted in well so we decideded to use "are you nervous" instead.

Our film is culturally versatile so the morals in the film would have been accepted over all diferent cultures in society. Relationship problems are something that happenes to everyone no matter what gender, ethnicity or age so everyone is able to relate to our film in the same way. we used a veriety of different techniques to collect feedback from friends, family and classmates.

Sophie recorded audience feedbackamongst class mates, although it was good because we could see their initial reaction, we felt that they held back with what they said because they were embarassed or they felt thay didn't want to offend us which is why me and Laura used the internet no collect our audience feedback. Laura used facebook to gather feedback which consisted of her posting our video onto a social networking site for all lauras friends to see and they could comment on it. This was a good way of gathering feedback because it allows people that you don't especially know to see the work that your doing and try and give positive feedback on how they feel it could be improved. Combining the thoughts of friends is very usefull when wanting to improve work however a disadvantage could be that a lot of people didn't want to post their responses because it was public for everyone to see. I e-mailed close friends and family with a link to our video on youtube and asked them to answer our questions. i felt this was the best method because people closest to you are more likely to give the most constructive criticism. For example after we used diferent music for our second and final version, my brother still felt that there was too much music on our film. Most of the feedback we got from everyone was very positive which is great, a lot of people said that they wanted our film to be longer because they enjoyed watching it and they wanted to see what happened next. On a whole people enjoyed our film which is brilliant and the initial audience feedback from our brief before filming definatley helped us make our film the best we thought it could be.

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

First and foremost we needed the internet to start our research. We used the internet to research our initial idea of using private investigators. because we know nothing about them we had to rely on the internet to educate us. Usually i use the search engine on google. We used websites such as these to help us gain an understanding of private investigators:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_investigator

http://www.ukprivateinvestigators.com/

We also used the internet to research similar films, posters and radio trailers.

Secondly we used the internet to create a blog which we upload all our work onto rather than i being on paper.

This is a screenshot of my posts on the blog. By having to upload out work onto blogger.com it's made it so much easier to be able to edit work, keep work safe but also keep track of what work needs to be done by making drafts of all the posts that need to be completed. The only downfall with having to use the internet to upload work is if the internet fails, or the computer breaks which i have experienced then you have to start from scratch again.
http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/ here is a link to our groups blog.

the other kinds of technology we had to use were the camera and zoom recorder that we used to film.
Whilst filming we used a sony HDV camera. This is a high definition camera which means that the filming was good quality, especially if it was played back through high definition products. This camera was alot more advanced than the handheld camcorders we had previously used in filming activities for example whilst practicing filming a match on action. We were happy with this camera because it wasn't too big and complicated but at the same time had all the devices on we needed. For example, we could make the filter brighter and change the contrast tomake the shot look sharper. Because the camera was in high definition it made the filming we did look more professional than if we had used an ordinary camera. The only problem with having the microphone attatched to the camera was the continuity in sound on our film, depending on how far away the camera was to the actors, it would pick up noises from elsewhere that were closer to the microphone making the diologue seem quieter.

To edit our film we used apple mac computers. We uploaded our film from a tape onto a DV recorder and then uploaded it onto final cut express to edit our film. The DV recorders that we used wern't very efficient because we often had trouble trying to upload our film from there to the apple mac which wasted alot of editing time. Final cut express was one of the easiest editing software to use once you got used to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCGGEQsbtPE&feature=related

watching videos such as this made it much easier to understand which different functions we could use and having detailed explanations of how to use them were much appreciated. On this editing software we were able to cut, cross fade and also zoom in to make it easier and clearer to edit. By being able to zoom in, it meant we could be more precise in our editing.

We used a zoom recorder to record the scripted part of our film trailor that wasn't taked from our film. The zoom recorder was hard to get used to at first because of getting used to how far away from the person speaking to hold it but eventually it became easier to judge. Also we had problems with the recorder running out of charge. Once we had recorded our radio trailer we uploaded it onto garage band and edited it that was too. Garage band was easy to use because it was similar to final cut express however we had trouble working out how to upload sound from our film onto garage band to edit it into our radio trailer.

Critical Evaluation - Soph A

In what was does the media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In terms of content, our genre was a drama, which I think we created successfully. The ideas behind the characters were quite simple: The main female lead, Rachael, was written to be the suspicious and jealous type, the one who would instantly jump to conclusions. With the male lead, we tried to keep him secretive, so that the audience would not know what he was doing. He wasn't included a great deal, only from a distance, which was important as it allowed the main character, Rachael, to form her opinions and judgments of him as well as the audience's. Leanne, the private investigator, was written to be quite controlling, almost manipulative. We tried to portray an air of confidence with this character, when she says "I've seen this all too many times before; good girls who deserve better. Don't worry, we're going to get to the bottom of this".
With it being a drama, we tried to make it as realistic looking as possible. We used 'normal' clothing, nothing two specific (apart from the business-like blazers that Leanne wears) and the make up of each of the actors was as they would normally have it, nothing too fake or heavy. There were no surreal locations as this was not a horror or a thriller, we kept them simple and "local", so that the viewer could relate to the film.
We aimed to create a 5 minute film aimed at teens, mainly towards girls. I think that this was successful because the plot can be related to by girls of that age. The fact that the female lead in the film hires a private investigator would be pleasurable to watch for females, as it seems that the females are in control of the situation and think they know what's going on. The twist in the tale should also be a factor that pleases, as it doesn't end quite how the audience think. We have left the film on a slight cliff hanger, so it is up for the audience to decide what happen next -  this was intentional to create a thirst for more of the film, which is important when producing films in Hollywood, as it generates interest.

The conventions of continuity were really important to get right. Continuity is the key to making a film or programme look convincing, and to making it flow smoothly from shot to shot. Personally, I find I notice continuity errors easily, and I was very keen on getting it right in our film. The most important thing about getting the continuity right was the planning: that was key to getting everything right. By making shot plan, even though they weren't to scale, meant that we could do each of the scenes quickly and effectively, and time was spent getting the acting right rather than messing about positioning the camera. Because we used cars in our film, we encountered traffic, which, at times, could be a problem. The scene outside the second house, where Ben and Savannah are spotted coming out of wasn't too bad, because each of the cars were stationary, but the scene where both of the cars are driving into the pub was especially difficult as we had to set the camera up outside a bust fish and chip shop, and the traffic was quite constant. This is a link to our shooting script. http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/shooting-script.html
We encountered a problem with some of the editing with the car scene outside the house; we had to choose shots that over lapped well for when there were different cuts, so the sound would seem continuous. Ideally, we would have used a separate sound recording equipment, but this kind of equipment was not available for us. At one point, there was an error with the sound as two different voices from the same shot, just from different angles overlapped. This meant that there was too much sound on one part, which was something we corrected in the second final edit. Here is a screen grab of that scene from Final Cut Express:

The blue boxes is the visual footage and the green is the sound. The video and the sound footage aren't the same all the way through, which is how you can tell that a lot of cropping and overlapping has been done. This was the most difficult scene to get right in terms of continuity, and I think the end result is good. Click this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYCnqmkkDxE and watch from 3 minutes 40 seconds to see this part of the film.


Another convention we observed was the 180 degree rule. Here is a video from www.youtube.com that explains the rule and why it should be observed, and when it can be broken.

A good example of this in our film is the final scene in Rachael's house. At no point does the camera cross over the "line" so the audience does not see the wall behind where the camera is on the shots. If it did, it could quite easily confuse the viewer because they might think that the scene has changed, because of the different view point. It would also make editing quite difficult, and would make it much harder to create a smoother scene. Here are screen grabs from each of the shots in the final scene that shows our observations of the 180 degree rule:

How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary text?

In the main production, we were trying to achieve a dramatic story in which the audience are made to side with Rachael, the female lead who believes her boyfriend is cheating on her.  In was important to convey this idea through the film poster and the radio trailer. When we wrote the script for the radio trailer, we decided to use extracts from the film to give a basic idea of the story. The voice over was nothing complex, just the film tag line and the date it would be released. We thought it would be better it was short and to the point, because long winded trailers lose attention and voice overs that are too long detract from the film itself. Voice overs can sometimes confuse listeners as they may think that the voice is actually a narrator for the film, which would be decieving and misleading if they came to watch it. Unfortunately it was extremely difficult for me to find examples of radio trailers, so I had to use film trailers, which were not always so easy to develop ideas from as there are two separate forms of media. The video trailers have the advantage of graphics and so voice overs weren't used as frequently, and silent pauses could be filled with shots tension building shots from the film. Here is a link the the film trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EC2tmFVNNE This is an example of how voice overs aren't needed as there are visual images that allow the audience to understand what is going on. The difficulty of a radio trailer is trying to convey an image without the pictures, yet trying not to give the whole story away.
I think that our ancillary texts present and sell our production well; from the final poster it's clear to see that there is an element of spying in, and that there is one 'team' against another. This was achieved by trying to split them up, similarly to the 'Obsessed' film poster that I have previously looked at. I also liked the poster for the film 'Last Night', how it splits the two couples up with a title in the middle.
Here are the three posters.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

An example of the questionnaire, conducted by Laura.

With the audience in mind, we decided that our idea of creating a drama with elements of romance in would be successful. We carried a questionnaire for our audience research and carried it out in two separate ways: firstly we gave out hard copies of the questionnaires to our prospective target audience, which is teenage girls, and asked them what they thought.


We also carried out a much more general questionnaire in the style of an interview, which we recorded on the zoom microphone and composed on Final Cut.

Zoom Microphone kit and Headphones

In filming and editing, certain cuts were important in creating effect. Firstly, we established that the narrator of the story would be Rachael, as the whole production if based around her viewpoint of the situation. The actor who played Rachael felt it was important to convey the stress that the character was going through, so concentrated a lot on her part of the script. The actor ho played Leanne was confident, and she expressed this through her acting. Leanne was a character that was in the background, but one that was obviously controlling the situation, we showed this by making sure that it was Leanne who always had an answer for everything that Rachael asked. We made sure that there was a bitter edge to the script, that teenage girls are more than likely able to relate with; the idea of hiring a private investigator to spy on a boyfriend who looks like he's cheating would make the female audience side with Rachael, and could also be a kind of escapism from there own situation, if they had one similar to it. Getting the audience on Rachael's side was key to the ending effect of the film. The idea is to prove the audience wrong, and to create a false impression for them.
 
From the audience feedback, I learned several things.

Laura's feedback via Facebook

I created video feedback, that can be seen here http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/2011/04/audience-feedback-soph.html I found creating a video was useful, because the responses were filmed directly after they watched the film, so the initial reactions were picked up quickly.
Laura used the same questions but used Facebook, a social networking site, to gain feedback. Rhiannon also used the internet to get her feedback, however she used private email. Both of these are useful because the information needed can be obtained quickly and effectively, however I think private e-mails allow people's opinions to be secure and uninfluenced by others.

Rhiannon's feedback via Hotmail.

The main points that people brought up here were the music and the bar scene. The music was too short at the beginning of the film , and didn't last long enough to build up the right amount of tension.
From this we built the sound up more, and used effects such as fades to subtly stop the music.
The audience said that they didn't quite understand what the pub scene meant, as it wasn't clear it was a hidden camera scene. We improved this by adding a viewfinder effect to the pub scene.
There aren't really any different interpretations depending on culture, I think it is a subject that is quite general and not specific to any race or sexuality. We aimed it at girls, but that doesn't mean men would not find the film any less appealing.

Browsers: Firefox, IE and Chrome 

How did you use new media technology in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the planning and research stages of our production, the Internet was an extremely important tool. The browsers that I used were Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Firefox was the main browser I used on the Apple Mac's, which was quick and was compatible with all websites. Chrome was much the same, and is my choice of browser on my laptop at home. IE tends to be slower than the other two, and is the only browser on the college library's computers. It worked fine, however on a couple of websites I found that certain styles on HTML didn't work, a problem neither of the other two browsers had, so it made research a little bit harder. The internet allowed us to set up a blog in which we have recorded all our research and planning.

Screen shot from www.blogger.com
The 'dashboard' from which the rest of the blog is controlled. Administrators of the blog are the only ones who can create, edit and publish posts. These posts are then added to the blog, with a date, time and label, so it is easy to show which member of the group has publish which posts.

Screen shot from www.welovea2media.blogspot.com
This is what is viewed by everyone else, and is how our information is presented. When a post is published it shows up on the blog, which can be accessed by anyone who knows the URL (above). When we first created the blog, I edited the colour scheme and the background to look more professional and more fitting with the subject. 




http://answers.yahoo.com/
A useful website for finding first hand
experiences with 'jealousy'.

 

Not only did the internet allow us to present our information, it allowed us obtain information quickly so we could begin to flesh out our ideas about the theme of our film. If we didn't have the internet, finding out information on things such as private investigators, we wouldn't have been able to find out much, as it would have been extremely difficult to access this kind of information if we were relying on things such as books and leaflets from actual companies. This basic research into looking at what private investigators do gave us a platform to work on, as we discovered that a private detectives main reason why they are usually hired to spy on someone's partner who believes that they are being unfaithful to them. From this, I thought it might be useful to research into the emotion 'jealousy', and websites such as 'Wikipiedia' (http://www.wikipedia.org/) gave me definitions and other related emotions, where as other sites like 'Yahoo Answers' showed personal responses to questions about dealing with jealousy. The Internet usefully allowed me to look at something from two different view points, meaning that after the research I felt well enough informed to create a convincing film. When searching for these, I used the search engine Google, as I find this to be the most effective and efficient. To narrow down the searches, I quote marks around words, for example, "honey traps". This specifically searches the phrase, not each individual word.

MS Word 2007 (PC Version)

When we were writing the script itself, we used Microsoft Word, which allowed us to set our script out in the correct standard layout. It meant we could alter margins and fonts, and use typographic methods such as bold, italics and underlining to represent stage directions and emphasis. We then used printers for hard copies of the script, which allowed the actors to learn their lines in preparation for filming. Another important part of planning was storyboarding. I drew the story board by hand, as I found this was the easiest way for me to get ideas down, and it would also allow me to add annotation as I went along. The storyboards for our film can be found on the following link: http://welovea2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/storyboards.html

Once complete, I used a scanner so I could upload the storyboards onto our blog. The scanner allowed me to create a digital version of my hand drawn storyboards.

The next stage of our research process was to create a questionnaire to see what audiences would expect from a film like ours. Here is the link to our Audience Questionnaire:
At first we used a Sony video camera to film the responses of our target audience. Unfortunately the tape broke while in someones bag, so it could not be used. Instead we used a zoom microphone to record peoples responses. This, in a lot of ways was much more convenient
for initial responses, because it allowed people to feel more natural rather than stare down a camera.


Sony HDV Camera and Tripod



In the filming process, we used a Sony HDV camera. HDV stands for high definition video, which records onto DV tapes. The camera allowed us to shoot in wide-screen format, and also allowed us to make adjustments to the white balance, which meant that we could get a professionally natural look, even if the actual lighting was not the best. The quality of the film was in high definition, which meant that the recording was clear and crisp; much better than basic camcorders that I had previously used. The only thing I felt that let the filming down was the sound: the Sony HDV had a decent microphone, however because it was attached to the camera itself, it meant that the volume didn't match up well if there was a close up and a medium long shot in the same scene. A separate piece of recording equipment, with a microphone on a boom would have improved the sound quality and the continuity much more.

A boom microphone such as this would have meant an even sound through out our film.

When editing our production, Apple Macs were used for there speed and efficiency. Not only are they quicker than PCs, they have a much larger memory capacity, which is important when working with high definition footage. The part of the editing that frustrated me the most was the DV tape deck we used to get the footage onto the Mac with. The leads were not the best quality so they didn't always work and occasionally connection was lost.
The editing software we used was Final Cut Express. I found this a relatively easy software to use; the tools were not complicated and therefore easy to figure out and experiment with, and there was a huge variety of effects to choose from, such as fades etc.

 To the right is a screen grab of the tool palette on Final Cut Express. The main tools I used were:
Selection: This tool was used when I needed to select a shot and shorten or lengthen it.
Razor Blade Tool: This tool allowed me to cut each of my shots where I wanted, so it created two separate shots to handle. This is the tool I used the most.
Zoom: I used this tool to zoom in so I could make cuts closer to where I wanted.

This is a screen grab of the effects window, which was where we selected the viewfinder effect for the final version of our film. This became important after our audience feedback, as the scene in which we added the effect was not clear to the audience that it was a hidden camera.  Below is a screen grab of the effect in place and the settings that we altered.

This is a screen grab of how we altered the volume levels of the music on our film.

This is a screen grab from Final Cut Express showing the use of effects in our film. These are cross fades, which can be used on both audio and visual tracks, that fade the shots in and out.

 Garage Band was the software we used to create the radio trailer. It was similar to final cut in someways, like the way the tracks could be layered and how each of the imported sound files could be cut and cropped at any point. Below is an annotated screen grab of Garage Band that I took in the process of creating our radio trailer.


 We used a Zoom microphone kit to record the voice over for the trailer, and used extracts from the film itself to advertise our trailer.The microphone was easy to use and allowed us to gather information quickly.