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A2 Media Evaluation By Rachael Natalie Young

A2 media evaluation

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Page 1: A2 media evaluation

A2 Media Evaluation

By Rachael Natalie Young

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

real media products?

When making my short film, I had to follow certain codes and conventions to help make our film look professional and challenge forms of real media products. By researching narrative, genre and different types of cinematography, it helped me to be able to have more knowledge about the film industry before starting to produce my own short film. The first thing I learnt about was narrative, and how storyline is important in engaging an audience. We looked at lots of theorists and short films to help give us initial ideas into how a professional film would look and be set out.

We looked at Todorov’s theory which suggested most narrative starts with a state of equilibrium and is then disrupted which is normally true. We also looked at Levi-Strauss, Barthes code and Propp’s character roles which helped us when producing our characters as we had the bad guy, and the victims. Genre was also another very important convention therefore I looked at lots of films for example the film ‘Paul’, ‘Super 8’ and other films that had different genres that are specific to a particular target audience. After looking at genre and narrative we looked at mise-en-scene and how costume helped to make the film look realistic and how the acting is also very important to make it believable. I also looked at different styles of editing for example, slow motion, sped up footage, hand-held footage or still footage. Films that helped us were ‘The Shining’, ‘Disturbia’ and ‘Halloween’.

Therefore, when we were making our short film we had to consider all of these codes and conventions to make our film almost professional. Firstly, we decided upon the genre which was a horror/physiological thriller. We considered the audience too and decided we would aim our film towards teenagers/young adults. We decided upon mise-en- scene and planned when we would film, how we would film (for example what cinematography) and also where about we would film in order to make our film look realistic to our audience to keep them engaged.

After filming, we uploaded our footage onto final cut pro and edited our short film by adding sound effects like scary music which related to our horror genre to make the film more exciting and thrilling to our audience. The editing also helps our story flow in a way that the narrative is linear because it makes more sense as it is jumpy and the music/editing helps to emphasise the physiological twist in our storyline.

Codes And Conventions For Short Film

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1. My Poster Codes And Conventions

In my poster and magazine article I had to also make sure these looked professional. I therefore researched lots of film posters for example the ‘One missed call’ and ‘Halloween II’ and followed the codes and conventions that they followed.

Large central image to attract audience.

Bold Title to introduce the film.

Tag Line-Short and snappy to engage the audience and promote the film.

Producers/Directors names- perhaps audience would relate to these if they were well-known which would attract them to see the film.

Good reviews to show people that it may be worth seeing.

Age Certificate

Sub line- introduce short film (Make it exciting).

Date that the film is out- tells audience when they can see it.

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1. My Double Page Article Codes And Conventions

Image from the film, black silhouette emphasises the horror genre

Date of film release

Interview

Bold Title

Heading Photo/Image

Sub-heading

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1. Existing Posters That I researched before making my Poster and Magazine Article

We followed the conventions that our audience would expect as we thought this would make them enjoy the film a lot more. One convention of narrative that also fits Horror is the Enigma code. This is where a mystery is set in place by the film and makes the audience think about the narrative. We looked at films like American Psycho that use this in a similar way that we did to construct a false ‘reality’ within the film. We used the idea that the main character thought he had murdered people when he had not but we withheld this from the audience, making an enigma code in the film we hope this would make people think about the film and talk about it attracting more audience.

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1. First Draft of My Poster

I decided to change the layout of my poster after all because I thought the main image was too big, I didn’t like the title and I thought the style of writing was a bit too ‘edited’. I prefer the layout of my final draft because it looks more professional and the design of it looks a lot better and more engaging.

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

I feel that the combination of my short film and my ancillary texts is very effective as they all cover the codes and conventions of real media products. For example, all three have a specific genre (horror/physiological) and both the poster and article follow the same colour scheme (black/white/red) which relates them together. In the short film, the narrative links to the taglines used in my poster ‘running the fine line between fiction and reality’ etc which relates to the storyline of the film. I have ensured that all 3 will attract my target audience because we followed all of the codes and conventions of a real film in order to make it look professional. Also we edited like most media products are. I wouldn’t say any product was stronger than the other, as I feel all three have been really well done. If I had to change anything about my products it would be perhaps making the acting a little bit better and perhaps adding more sound to the film but members of my team weren’t too keen so we came to an agreement.

My team members feel the same about our short film, and we all worked hard to complete it to a high standard. My poster and article are to publicise the film and I think the ‘exclusive’ interview on my article works very well in engaging the audience and advertising the film. I think the poster is also effective as it is bold, the dark image relates to the dark, horror genre of the film and also promotes the film very well in my opinion.

In the next few slides I will show you how I think my product is effective and why….

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2. Marketing and Advertising

Marketing and Advertising our film was obviously important. Therefore, by using the codes and conventions of a real media product it helped make our products look professional.For example, using a house style. On my products I kept the house style white,black and red as these colours are normally associated with the horror genre. Whilst making the poster I had to use all of these codes and conventions in order to attract the target audience and also to help promote and publicise the film.

In my double page magazine article, I decided to do an interview with the ‘new’ actress Rachael Young. This was in order to get across all details of the film, about narrative, and about the actress herself to give the audience an exclusive insight into the new film.The house style stayed the same throughout and I think that I have promoted the film fairly well.

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3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The importance of audience feedback is very important. I knew from initial planning and research who my target audience were and what they wanted to see. When I conducted a questionnaire, I got some really great feedback which I am pleased with. For example, people said that the acting was good, the editing was good, they like how the colour scheme stays the same throughout and how the genre is reflected in the movie very well. Also people liked the different types of cinematography used.

From my audience feedback, I have learnt that I have managed to promote/engage and advertise my film fairly well as most of the feedback was positive. I made a questionnaire and asked ten people to fill it in after looking at my media products. I am very glad I got audience feedback as it helps me learn what to do better in the future, or what to change etc in order to progress further.

This is from a status posted on the social networking site Facebook. This is some of our audience feedback. Not only did our film get likes, it got some good comments.

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After our film was complete I wanted to find out what the audience thought about it. Therefore, I created a questionnaire and handed it out to ten people that watched our film and then wrote down answers to 6 questions. Here is an example of one:-

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

stages?

Throughout my coursework, I have converged many types of media to create my ancillary tasks and my short film. For example numerous websites to upload my images, footage and work onto. I have used digital cameras to film, which has extended my knowledge of Photoshop and final cut pro. Also I have downloaded music and used music off garage band and added that to my film whilst edited and just loads! By getting more familiar with all of these types of convergence and digital technology, my skills have now improved rapidly and I have been able to produce my own media products.

In the next few slides I will be discussing about communications on the internet, and web 2.0…

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4. Distribution of my Own Work and how technology helped

By using websites like Blogger and social networking sites like youtube and slideshare, it has enabled me to advertise and distribute my work all over the world. By putting our short film onto youtube, it has made our film global and anybody can watch it. The internet is becoming extremely popular now, and the use of better digital technology has enabled us to make our film almost professional.

Web 2.0 helps us to communicate via the internet. Recently, skype, youtube and social networking sites like facebook have enabled people to gain access to the internet and to communicate with people all over the world from their home. PCs have made our lives so much easier in some ways as people can upload their own footage to the internet, whilst also viewing other peoples footage or images. Also, nowadays you can tag yourself at certain events, or places and you can now even check in at certain places! Also the internet helped me to research everything from the filming industry, to codes and conventions to narrative, genre etc.

My skills have certainly developed during the making of my media products and ancillary tasks as in AS I had never really worked on final cut pro before or garage band. The only problem I encountered was uploading the video footage to the apple mac as I had never used one before. It was just a case of getting used to the Mac really. However, the editing was complicated too but working as a team did help whilst producing the short film.The theme of the film was also important as it was a horror genre so had to be gripping to the audience in order to engage them to the film. The technology was helpful as it enabled me to cut things out or add music, sound like voice overs and add text to the film at the end.

Overall, without the technology and convergence we have today, I don’t think our film would have looked as professional at all and therefore, I think the use of digital technology and the internet was extremely useful.