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.

Radio Trailer (final)

Final Product - Version 2

Here is the final version of Undercover.

From the audience feedback, we changed our film to improve it.

Audience Feedback - Rhiannon

For my audience feedback i sent out e-mails to my closest family and friends, with a link of our 5 minute viedo on and the questions they had to answer.

Final Product Version 1

Combined Effort Poster

Poster - Rhiannon

Similar Film Research; Rhiannon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w14v4vGUDdg

Because i thought it would be hard to find a film that has a similar story line to the one we had chosen i decided to research short 5 minute films instead. This film has a basic plot however from the editing and filming of it, it still manages to create lots of mystery and suspense. At the start and end of the film, there is a shot of a ticking clock. At the beginig there is a medium close up of the clock in colour that lasts aproximatley 11 seconds, i like this shot because it creates lots of suspense as to what must be happening while the clock is ticking and usually a ticking clock means counting down the time and it creates mystery as to what is running out of time. However in contrast at the end, there is a close up of a clock but in black and white this time. i like the fact the film film starts and ends with a similar shot of the clock because then you can tell theres a definate beging and an end. The film then cuts to a shot of Rena sat on the bed and Emit rushing in. The diegetic sound thats should be there has been muffled to create confusion amongst the audience and subtitles are used to understand what is being said. There is non deigetic music over the top that fits perfectly with the mood of the film and contributes to much of the tension created. In this first scene aswell, there is emphasis on a wooden box thats on the table and all the other action in the shot is blured so all the attention is focused on the box. There is a brilliant close up shot of the box where the other action in the shot is blurred and it draws the audiences attention to the box rather than anything else in the shot and leaves confusion amongst us as to why the box is so important.

There is a sequence of medium close up shot reverse shots between the three people in the scene at the time.

I like this sequence of shot reverse shots because Emit and Rena are always in the same shot showing to the audience that they are together, then switches to a medium close up of all 3 people then a medium close up of the other man. I really like the shot of the other man because you can still see Emit and Rena in the mirror ans can still see their reactions to what is being said.
After this scene there its lots of very fast editing if Emit running backwards everywhere. The music gets alot faster to create tension and the shots are switched from long shots, medium shots, and medium close up shots. This creates so much suspense because of the way the scene is edited. It makes the audience feel like they are in Emits mind and gives an insight into how Emit must be feeling however the is still confusion because nobody knows why Emit is like he is.

Throught the film the box is always the main focus:

Rena with the box

Emit running away with the box

Final shot of Emit holding the box

At the end of the film, the filter changes to black and white and the music quietens down and gets slower which is a contrast to the scene before with the fast editing and music.

Make Up/Specific costumes

There wasn't many specific costumes or make-up design however the costumes that were used helped to make the film more understandable. For example when Ben and Rachael are laid in bed in the morning after just waking up, becasue when the scene was filmed it was light outside, Ben and Rachael had to be dressed like they had just woke up.

Most males just sleep in shorts however Byron who plays Ben, didn't feel confortable being filmed without a top on so the costume we decided on for Ben was just black shorts and a baggy black t-shirt to make it look like pyjammas.

For Rachaels morning costume, because you couldn't see what she was wearing while she was laid in bed, the main focus on the costume was as Rachael was beibg filmed coming down the stairs. Rachael was dressed in a dressing gown which we all felt was a realistic costume choic

Because of our film plot, Rachael thinking that Ben is cheating on her, we felt that we had to try and convince the audience that Rachael is right and we though the best way to do this was tve Ben going out of the house to go to "work" in his typical "work clothes" however when Leanne and Rachael see him coming out of Savannahs house, he isnt dressed in work clothes.

This is Ben dresses in work clothes

Then this is Ben dressed in his other other shirt which is different to how Racahel saw him going out of the house to work. Although the shot of Ben and Savannah getting into the car is not very clear, Ben has got a different shirt on and it's much clearer to see in the shot at the pub.

Leanne is dressed in a grey blazer to make her look professional throughout the bistro scene and the telephone conversation.

Continuity with costumes was good even though scenes were filmed on different days, we made sure that the same costumes were worn where needed.

Location Shots

This is take 2 Academy theatre which we used as our location for "The Bistro". We thought this would be an appropriate place to film as it is a Drama school so they would be willing to let us film there. Also there is a spacious cafe inside that as a suitable set up to be able to film all the shots we needed.




This is the Fitzwilliam Arms which we filmed the pub scene with Ben, Suzie and Savannah. We felt this was the best plae to film it due to the fact it's a small, quiet friendly pub that is convinient for everyone to get to. Also there was plenty of opportunity to film the cars driving to the pub because the pub is on a quiet main road, opposite a junction which was the ferfect location for what we needed to film.





This is Sophies house which we used as "Savannahs house" in our film. This wasn't the original location we chose to use but due to difficulty filming at the other location we realised Sophies house was much more convinient for what we needed to film for. Because this house is opposite a school enterance it was the ideal place for us to do the scene where leannes car is parked up waiting for Ben and Savannah.




This is my house which we used as "Rachael and Ben's" house. We decided to use this location again because we used it to film our first year film and found there was plenty of opportunity to film inside when nobody was in and there was plenty of space to set up the camera and move it round to get in all the shots we wished to.

Risk Assessment

werth

Shooting Script

Scene 1: Rachael and Ben's bedroom. Morning.1. Establishing shot of the house, exterior. Zoom to bedroom window.2. Pan of the bedroom, starting from right moving left.
3. Birds eye view shot of them both in bed4. Shot reverse shot from Rachael and Ben's points of view.5. Pan with Ben as he exits the room.

Scene 2: Hallway and living room. Morning.5. Tilt as Rachael comes down the stairs.
6. Pan with Rachael as she leans around the door to look at Ben.
7. Camera in living room facing Rachael at the door.
8. Over shoulder shot, looking at the texts.9. Pan with Ben as he leaves the room10. Shot of Rachael watching Ben through the window
11. Over Rachael's shoulder, Ben getting in his car.12. Car drives away

Scene 3: Phone conversation. Rachael's kitchen/Leanne's office. Mid-Morning.
13. Medium close up of Rachael stood.
14. Medium close up of Leanne in her office.




Scene 4: "The Bistro". Afternoon15. Pan of Rachael walking into the cafe and sitting down
16. Long shot of both Rachael and Leanne sat at the table.
17. Medium close up of Rachael (over shoulder) S/R/S18. Medium close up of Leanne (over shoulder) S/R/S
19. Close up of Rachael's face.
Scene 5: Car. Late afternoon.20. Medium shot through the passenger window.21. Shot from the rear seats, over the shoulders of Rachael and Leanne at Ben's car.
22. Long shot of Ben and Savannah getting into Ben's car (POV shot)Scene 6: Pub. Early evening.
23. Shot of the puband the cars driving into the car park. Pan.
24. Medium shot through the passenger window of Leanne's car.
25. 'Hidden' camera shot of Savannah, Suzie and Ben in the pub.
Scene 7: Leanne's house. Night.
26. Medium Close up of Rachael and Leanne on settee.
Scene 8: Rachael and Ben's house. Next day.
27. Medium close up-


Key:
Black triangle - Different places the actors were at during the scene.
Coloured circles - Different places the camera was at in the scene