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

This question had to be shown in the form of a Prezi the link is below hope you enjoy :)












Prezi Question 4

What we have learned from our audience feed back? sophey sommers

What we have learned from our audience feed back?




our two sorces that gave interesting comments:

Our target audience for our short film was from the range of 15 to 40 and targeted at females. 

when researching and asking questions to our audience we found that mainly the females enjoyed it more. We did this research but sitting family members down from our group’s families and getting there feed back. 

This helped when we used internet sites as well. 

The representations we chose and found all gave an answer relatively the same saying it was an imaginative idea and used good location, also including expert shots and mise en scene. 
What our group feel we have learnt from our feed back has helped us on what to do and what not to do in future projects; for example using better sound/editing  and better filming equipment, we ourselves understand this but others found this gave our film an old world quality.

From ‘Facebook’ one of our comments was ‘very intriguing’ this helped us feel that it gave a sense of it captivating the audience.  


On 'Youtube' comments like:

This helped us learn that they had enjoyed the short film, the camera work and that we used all the correct techniques, like the 180 degree rule (wasn't broken),  transitions where all correct. 

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

•  Narrative organisation 
• Characterisation
• Mise en scene 
• Use of genre conventions
• Editing/post production 

Narrative organisation

The short films I have decided to look at are "Waving At Cars", David Beauchamp,2008, "The Archivist" James Lees, 2008, "The End Of The Line" Max Pugh, 2005, "Signs" Publicis Mojo, 2009, "Inside" Trevor Sands, 2008. Each film has its own uniqueness and really helped our group decide on what to have in our film. Short films contain some of the most inventive and unconventional work to be found in film making. Each film I have chosen to write about contains their own personal narrative and they way they have been organised really connects with the audience. 


All the films have a beginning, middle and end apart from "Waving at cars" which has an open ended ending. Narrative organisation allows the audience to establish the setting the characters and what situation they have been put into and this is all because of the layout of the beginning, middle and ending. I think having an open ended film sometimes can be quite interesting at time allowing the audience to make there own ending up. "Signs" is the longest short film I looked at and therefore has a completed short film. It also, had many locations and more characters were involved unlike "Waving at Cars" which is very short and has three main characters and the ending is left for the audience to understand.  

Characterisation 

Each short film had only a few main characters in them mainly just two. However, this is depending on how long the film is.  But the way they are presented really allows the audience to understand who they are trying to portray, this could either be stereotypical or they play a character that was meant for them. 


For example in "Waving at cars" the male character physically abuses his wife and the audience can see this by his actions. This is shown through the use of camera work, and sound mainly. There is a close up of his hand upon hers on the trolley showing he has a tight grip over her so she can't escape almost like she is trapped. The dialogue that is used his language and body language as well with it is very aggressive and he is very threatening and the audience can see this. 

It is a lot like "The Archivist", where he is so obsessed with his girlfriend and the audience can see how far this goes. Again, this is shown through mise en scene and sound. Throughout the film there is the sound of the vacuum machine as the film goes on the audience recognise that, that sound is him wrapping something else up that his girlfriend had touched or even looked at. Each prop has a symbol of characterisation in this film because each one is about their relationship and how he as an unusual obsession with her.  


I think the characterisation is very important in a short film because if their stories they are telling make no sense then the short film would have no narrative organisation.  These conventions of short film need to work together to make a good short film. 

Mise en scene 

The props used in "The Archivist" are very good, because each one was thought through and used and had its own relevance to the film. This influenced our film and one of the good things about our film is that the props we used were toys that would have been played with in the 1940s and the location everything to do with the 1940s was thought through properly so that it would work. 


The lighting in this film as well is very interesting, there is very little light when he is in the main room and this fits well with the film because it itself is quite dark and twisted. Also, what I noticed when watching the film I thought that when he was with his girlfriend in the beginning everything seemed brighter almost as if the lighting was fitting with the mood of the film because as it goes on and their relationship gets worse then the lighting gets darker. 


The setting was good for all the films each one was in a different location which showed that short films can have variety and there not all in the same locations. 

Genre Conventions 

The films that I have picked, I have tried to make them all have a diverse and different so that the audience can see the difference between each short film. One is about domestic abuse/drama, mental disability/drama, romance, romantic/drama and a split personality. I think it was good to write about different genres because then is shows my point made earlier about short films being inventive and unconventional. 

Editing 

I have chosen two screen from the short film "The End Of The Line" because I thought it had the best editing techniques used out of most of the short films I had picked. Because there was so much used in the film, the colour change to show the importance of the beach to this character which links to characterisation, and also, all the filters used to show her confusion and show what the problem is with her. I think in our film we should have used more editing techniques this made of improved our film and would have been better. 

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?- Jennifer Allan and Sophey Sommers and Artemis Karadimas

Video responce: first draft:

REVIEW

Evaluation

We have started on our evaluations and the bit we are doing as a group is mini commentary of how well all our products work together. We chose to film this using a green screen as we haven't used this before and we hope it will make it more visually interesting! 

Final Review - Artemis

When it comes to period dramas, they are often judged on their historical accuracy. The ones that are believable, credible and realistic are those that receive the highest ratings. We might have been forgiven in thinking that this was too great a task for Allan, Karadimas and Sommers to pull off, however in this case the sense of profundity, obscurity and setting is what makes it convincing. Forsaken flirts with both the power of patriarchy and gender representation in the 1930’s. As with their previous film ‘Asylum’, Sommers, Allan and Karadimas capture the thrilling element in their period drama skilfully.

Fragile mother Myrtle’s life is a portrait of the dominant ideology whereby women were seen as second class citizens to men. Acclaimed actress Katie Sommers plays a woman of the 1930’s effortlessly, not questioning her husband about the sudden demise of her child and acting pretty hopelessly in general. Her perturbed expression and cluelessness allow the story to go on, as her actions enable George (Edward Johnson) to get away with such an iniquitous and immoral act. She portrays the submissive dependent mother with ease and grace as we see the story from her point of view and feel with her the emotional roller-coaster she is on, going back and forth between the past and present. Although it has to be said it is difficult to feel sorry for Myrtle under the circumstances when she asks no questions, giving the impression of her naivety. Would we like to believe that put in that situation we would have seen the bigger picture? Or perhaps we might have been just the same, defeated and accepting of the sometimes cruel hurdles life has to throw at us. 

Johnson applied the phlegmatic and ruthless exterior you would expect a man to have had in the 1930’s that allows him to make the deplorable decision of putting his son secretly into an institution for the mentally ill. His lack of emotion imitates the patriarchal ideology set in the 30’s without flaw. Some may say that he was a little too convincing in his role, stating very matter of fact that his only child had died, deceiving his wife so dexterously and only offering her his cold hard shoulder in her time of need and comfort. The cliff-hanger ending enhances the story, leaving the audience with enigmas and increasing the depth of darkness.

Whilst we may have seen this kind of story before in the past film ‘The Lost Prince’, ‘Forsaken’ depicts a classic tale of deceit and lies, intertwined with love and power handsomely. A mix of history and the ever lasting issue of abandonment compliment this film perfectly. It makes for one of those narratives which poignancy has a lasting impression, long after the final shot. 

Word count: 462

Different poster designs- Sophey Sommers

Draft 1:
Original picture, added a 'Grunge' effect over the top and changed the opacity.

Draft 2:

We decided to go for the original  version we created but i wanted to show how we expanded our ideas. having a more colorful poster.

Near to the end.. - Artemis

• We have nearly finished our final film and things that have worked well and don't need improving are the colour and quality of the picture - at first we were unhappy that we couldn't film with a HD camera but the normal camera give the final finish an old and antique feel. The colour also has a sepia feel to it which increases the sense of period. 
• Our title sequence fits in with the time period because it is simple and we used a classic font and colour. We wanted to be a bit more ambitious and have splats of ink to relate to the idea of a letter but decided that this looked too modern for our film. 
• The sound is looking good too, the pieces of music we have intertwined with the diagetic sound add emotion to the footage and story. However we still need to edit the volume to make it a bit louder in some parts. 

FINAL POSTER - ARTEMIS

• In the end we decided that just a plain white font would look best and stand out more. 
• We also decided to to have the film icons in black and overlay them on top of the boy's white shirt so they can be seen clearly. 
• We aligned all the text so it had some sort of order and looked neat.
• We used classic fonts to represent the period we were portraying which was the 1930's.
• The grainy texture and sepia colour were also done to represent this. 

Finished Product

Here is a final video on YouTube

example posters research - Sophey Sommers

When looking at period drama film posters you can see many similarity's  
they all have a band going either across the middle or bottom with the Title in it. Also having the main characters in full view for the audience.

picture for film reveiw- Sophey Sommers

Editing Process:
*Uploaded the photo into Photoshop.
*Changed the vibrancy and saturation.
*Saved and then uploaded to 'Picnik' website.
*Went onto the 'Effects' tool and curved the edges and saved back to my file.

Review Draft - Artemis

When it comes to period dramas, they are often rated based on how accurate they are. The ones that are believable, credible and realistic are those that receive the most credit. We might have been forgiven in thinking that this was too great a task for Jennifer Allan, Sophey Sommers and Artemis Karadimas to pull off, however in this case the sense of profundity, obscurity and setting is what makes it convincing.

Fragile mother Myrtle (Katie Sommers) plays a woman of her time effortlessly, not questioning her husband about the sudden demise of her child and acting pretty hopelessly in general. Her perturbed expression and cluelessness allow the story to go on, as her actions enable George (Edward Johnson) to get away with such an iniquitous and immoral act. We see the story from her point of view and feel with her the emotional rollercoaster she is on, as we go up and down in the past and present memories of her life.

Johnson applied the phlegmatic and ruthless exterior you would expect a man to have had in the 1930’s that allows him to make the deplorable decision of putting his son secretly into an institution for the mentally ill. Only in this period would you find he would have had the power and control over the situation.

The cliff-hanger ending enhances the story, leaving the audience with enigmas and increasing the depth of darkness. It makes for one of those narratives that leave you thinking for a long time after.

*this is only half of it!

Jenny Allan- Editing

Today we finally finished our product but watching it back the sound of the voice over doesn't match the time period and also, there is a moment in the garden scene where you can not hear Costa (Benjamin's) voice it is very faint among all the other sounds. I will plan to change these as soon as possible once this has been done our main final project is finished. All we need so sort out is our film poster and review.

Title sequence- Sophey Sommers

when we where in the middle of editing our film we decided to sort out our title sequence, i know how to do stop motion, so we thourght to give it a unique affect i would create a short title sequence in stop motion.

In the end it didn't happen because there's way too much to do at the moment. but here are the stop motion titles that i had a look at when trying to create ours.
















Title research- different ways of individual and diverse to other normal titling:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/08/24/willard/

This webpage helps you create stopmotion on the computer =

http://weshootthefreak.com/2011/03/12/tutorial-stop-motion-title-sequence/

Jenny Allan - A problem

Today we had to put our titles into our film because we forgot to before putting all our sound into our film. Doing this made the sound out of place and needed to be moved. We did this but the sound levels were then disrupted. We were so close to finishing but not need to redo all  of our sound levels to make it fit back in with the imagery in the film. I am hoping to finish this sometime tomorrow and hopefully get it back up to the standard we had it at. 

Ancillary Task (Poster) Research - Artemis

• These two images show the main characters and their painful expressions indicating to the audience that this is a dramatic love story.  They are also more a less the same size, so one is not dominating over the other, which implies they are equal.
• The title font is typewriter like which relates to the film because in it the protagonist male character writes the protagonist female character a letter using a typewriter. It also gives a hint to the time period. The type of font I think we should use would be a calligraphy type font because in our film we have a letter using it and it would connect the film and poster.
• In the bottom image we can see the male is wearing a green outfit and bag implying he's in the army and also he looks dirty which emphasizes this. This suggests to me that this is what the story might be about. The two lovers separated by war..
•  I like the idea of doing something similar in our poster because it connects the two characters. Plus in the title you can see an image of another character suggesting that this story might involve a third party. 
• We can see that this film is from the director of 'Pride and Prejudice' which is a period drama too so this again suggests it was not set in modern day. 
• I can see from the poster it is based on a book which tells me the targeted audience is more likely to adults because they would be more likely to have read the book. Also it seems to have war in it, which would be more appropriate for adults.

•  The overall layout of the text and background is quite messy which indicates that is how her life is..
• From this shot we can also see her in her natural surroundings which seems to be her bedroom. The drawings on the wall and rips tell me that she is perhaps lower class because it looks quite old and dirty. 
• Because the character is also looking away and out what seems to be a window, I get the impression that she is dreaming of better things because she has this longing expression on her face yet we can see she is unhappy with what might be her current life. 
• It also suggests that this is a social realist film because of the bright, slightly desaturated colour telling me that the audience it's targeted for is more likely to be lower/middle class and British because they could relate more.  

 

• The smart font and dark background suggest this film is a thriller or drama. This is also reinforced by the body language and facial expressions of the 3 characters. Their costumes are quite smart and the dark shadows on the males face suggest he is out for vengeance or is angry..
• 'Thrilling', 'A Masterpiece' and 'Spellbinding' also imply that this is a thriller or perhaps drama. 
• This film is based on a 60's novel which tells me that it is more likely to be targeted towards adults because they would have read the novel. It also explains why the women are standing behind the man, because in the 60's women we were still came after the men. 
• The ratings being from well known and popular British newspaper show the audience it is a British film as does the background and title.

Jenny Allan Film Poster Design

 

Here is my film poster design, this one is my 1st draft i would like to do another one because for starters i have got the title wrong for the film and secondly films posters normally have a person or the main characters on the front i will ask artimis and sophey if i can borrow some images from them so i can do this.

Poster Draft - Artemis

 

This is another poster idea. In the beginning I decided to just have the one image but then I decided that Myrtles character is more of the main character. The story is from her point of view so I wanted her to be on the poster to. I liked the idea of blending the images together because it represents how they aren't directly with one another but are connected in some way. The only thing I need to do now is add an age rating. 
 

 

•  This is my draft for the film poster. It isn't finished yet. I plan on adding another image of Katie (Myrtle) at the top which will be similar to the bottom image in size, colour and expression. This is to show how the characters connect.
•  I decided on a sepia, brownish colour for the overall tone because it is set in the 1930's and I tried to reinforce this by trying to make the poster look authentic and old. Plus we have the whole film set in this tone of colour which is what we did when we edited.
• I took a picture of Kosta (Benjamin) outside because his surroundings in the film are a bit all over the place. In the film he doesn't really belong anywhere concrete, seeing as his father sends him off to a mental institution. 
• The idea for the title came from the fact that Benjamin's whereabouts are revealed in a letter so I tried to make it look like an old letter in calligraphic writing on top of some old brown paper similar to the letter in the film.
• I did think about blurring the images of Katie and Kosta instead of having the title separate them, however I thought the title would be better because in the film the two characters are separated by something. 

Editing Process

• We have finished our rough cut. To create an aged atmosphere we added a sepia effect to all our shots. 
• To show how our scenes go from the past to the present (in the time period of the 1940's) we added in a cross fading transition which fades between the 2 shots. This gives it a really nice feel and emphasizes the emotion in the story.
• We also have the problem of hearing traffic in the background of some of our shots so we are going to get rid of it and add in some rural noises either through garage band or from our own recordings.

logo design - Sophey Sommers

Still going with an old style, fitting to our period film. old tea stained burned ink etc.

here are a few designs i have come up with for the logo:

Here are some references i have used to give me an idea of what our logo could look like:

All giving an old feel, the texture, the type etc.

my design for our poster- Sophey Sommers

Film Posters Jenny Allan

Here is my analysis on the film poster of "Brighton Rock" The mise en scene normally shows the representation of characters and location. But the reviews and ratings along with age certification show what audience this film is for. The title shows a good sense of narrative showing where the film is or gives the spectator an idea of what the film is about. The descriptive words finally give us an idea of what the genre of the film could be in this case "THRILLING" related to a thriller also, the novel that has been written its genre is a thriller. To me I really like this poster i think it really shows the meaning of the film we understand a little about the main characters we get an understanding of the location and the title of the film is bold enough for me to see clearly what is called. The description words also, helped me understand the meaning of the film, and what genre it belongs to. 

Here is an analysis from the film poster of Fish Tank. The photo is very interesting, the lighting has lit up her face and the surroundings behind her which allows us to understand her character and the representation of her. The location allows the audience to see what kind of film this could be the poster is a picture taken from her bedroom, which has childrens' drawings and the wall paper is falling off, this also, shows what genre the film could be. I really like the poster for fish tank, because we see the main character of the film and although the title seems baffling  the poster helps it become more understandable, with the descriptive words and the blurb about the production team and the other related films this helps the audience understand what this film might be about.

Title Ideas

We weren't completely satisfied with the title 'Forsaken' so we came up with some new possible titles.

• Letters 
• Abandoned
• Disowned
• Outcast
• Crestfallen
• Shamed

Film posters- Sophey Sommers

Film posters for the time period our short film is set: 

From these posters i can get a better understanding of how the layout and text could look like for our short film.

Film Review a great description, of a fantastic British film.  

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/film_reviews/article2350206.ece

Atonement

The Lost Prince

The Lost Prince is an acclaimed British television drama serial, produced by Talkback Thames for the BBC and originally broadcast in two episodes on BBC One in January 2003. 

When doing research on film posters from the 1940's you are able to see how different they are from today's ; they are very animated, font is usually the same block type and slanted to give an emphasis on it.

conventions of a film poster- Sophey Sommers

From this i hope to get a better understanding of creating a film poster fit to our short film.

Second Day Of Filming

Taking a break..

A lot of our shots were hand held

Shooting our first scene where Myrtle finds the letter!

Jenny behind the camera!

Our Re-Shoting- Jenny Allan

We finally finshed all of our shots and made sure this time there were no fire extinghers in the background of the shot or any other props that weren't around in the time pierod our film is set in.

Sophey told me though unfortunatly that our last shots are a bit wobbly because we had to use the camera handheld throughout mostly because the tripod was completly broken and the camera sat unsteadly on top. We thought it would be so much better to use the camera handheld because the tripod was so broken.

Unfortunatly today Artimis and Sophey are not here and Sophey has the camera so therefore I can not edit. So will just work on the blog and finish off everything that needs to be done on here, that I can finish.

The filming!- Sophey Sommers

The filming went well, Artemis and myself did a good job just being two of us; it was hard work trying to do the lighting and having ( sorry to say) the worst equipment in the world. 

We had to re-shoot everything, because we where given a different camera last minute. 

I am really disappointed with the whole equipment thing; on our first time shooting it went really well the camera and most of the other equipment was great, it’s just a shame we had to use a bad camera.

Sound- Sophey Sommers

My research for an appropriate sound track

Recently I have been watching films/ youtube/ short films, and listening to there sound track. Here are a few of them:

Spiderwick chronicles

I listened to the first few seconds and it has a slow beginning it made me question what the mood and atmosphere was, it started slow and light, it then had a dramatic change, scary, dark and atmospheric. I think it is perfect for our short film, it would create mystery and enigma codes for the viewer along wit the motion film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUnmKJb99Jo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvAL79Txhiw&feature=related

Confusion remorse light chimes create a sincere mood. Violins creepy drums reputations keep a scary pace

Edward scissorhand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2oDSEkNV8w&feature=related

Gentile, light, emotional. 

Big fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8UbXXkB60A&feature=fvst

8.13- 9.54 ;

The music picks up pace, I thought this would be good for our ending where she finally finds him after all the years, it will show her relief, all the heart ache and loss can be put behind her and she can finally be with her son.

The background music will pick up when she goes through the door and he is standing staring at her.

Corpse bride

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

some songs on my ipod fit the the criteria;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2BudsKiFSs&feature=fvst

What i lernt from last year- sophey sommers

When starting this new project I had steps I needed to change to make a better and professional outcome.
Last year our short film, wasn’t the best, it had bad editing, sound, lighting and clumsy camera work.
This year, I want to concentrate on a better outcome, by doing this I intend to, become better at editing, learning how to use final cut and work on a sound track that suits our particular short film.
I also what to learn new and inventive camera work.
With the lighting from our fist piece, it was dark and sepia looking, that I think was by accident, but it was laziness that we didn’t change it.
With the new project, I hope our group can work to gather to create the right look for the time period.
in the first project our title sequence was quite good, it fitted with our genre, this time We have thought about a very complex title sequence, but I’m sure we will be able to do best to our ability.

Shots we learnt from - Jenny & Artemis

Last week we shot 2 scenes and then edited the footage together. I think what worked well was the fact we had a lot of footage to work with and had a variety of angles, shots etc. However because of the time period we are setting it in, there has to be a lot of work put into the props and setting etc. Unfortunately we missed out a few things like fire extuinguishers that were on the wall and small things like that that broke up the continuity and showed it wasn't in the 1930's - 40's. We are going to need to film some of these shots again.

We think that this shot was particularly successful because the high angle enables the audience to see the setting and because it's quite big it creates a sombre atmosphere. 

We also like this shot however there is a lack of continuity with the radio because in this shot it's at the side yet in the next shot it's by the window. We also didn't think about the fire extinguisher which they wouldn't have had in those days. However we do like the dark lighting and the fact that a silhouette was created because this carries on the eery ambience. Also the cinematography worked well because the long shot showed off the big hallway and emphasized the atmosphere. 

This shot was quite bad because in it we can see the scaffolding which wouldn't have been present in the 1930's - 40's. We also managed to cut off the top of the female characters head so  the framing was unsuccessful. 
Next time we go to re shoot this luckily all of the paint and scaffolding will be gone so hopefully it will be easier to reshoot. 
We will also keep an extra eye out for things like fire extinguishers and any other objects that might affect the continuity and were not in that time period. 
What also needs improving is the lighting in some of the shots. In many cases it was too dark and this was because we were only all available to film in the evening. Seeing as half term is coming up we are going to be able to shoot during the day.