Since the birth of cinema all films were short and often comprised of twisted of controversial themes that are observed in our society. Such themes may be displayed in a surrealistic nature. For instance, themes such as consumerism, unemployment, crime, and justice are commonplace. They are usually focused on contemporary British society and engage the audience with confrontational issues that many would rather remain oblivious to. Their purpose is usually educational, experimental or to showcase new talent. Our short film explores notions of British culture and identity. Full-length feature films are very different. They are essentially interested in making money, by entertaining the audience, not necessarily to educate them. Some feature length films such as Danny Boyle's “Trainspotting” do raise awareness of social issues. However, our film's purpose was to entertain though we wanted to tack a serious issue, racism, in a light hearted-way which is not the norm in social realist films so there is a message to be learnt from our film.
Our short film product would fit in the comedy genre with some surreal documentary elements although a serious message is being portrayed. Some scenes seem very surreal which is a common element in short films.
Our film was shot using a DV camera which gives a gritty effect, and with kinetic movement, a sense of reality was emphasised, something common in short film. There is little dialogue used but several scores running throughout. The narrative structure of our film is linear and circular with a three part structure with a beginning, middle and an end. The titles are left to the end which keeps to the norm of a short film.
The stylistic forms and conventions of our film makes it pretty standard for a short film. However, we developed our film and updated some of the standard conventions. We took the conventional purpose of a short film to educate the audience but highlighted the comedy element, making our film more experimental and entertaining while raising awareness of issues, therefore challenging forms and conventions.
Magazine reviews are a clever way of advertising films through their use of synergy as well as cross-promoting products that may interest certain audiences; recommending new productions to readers and providing exposure for genres which they may have not witnessed previously. The main distinction to be made between a film review and an advert is that film reviews are not always favourable as they are produced by a third party.
Depending on the institution producing the film magazine, it may be biased in favour of all films, while others may analyse in an academic and critical way. In the majority of film reviews, there is a synopsis on the film as well as opinion and analysis. The level of analysis and opinion varies depending on the institution producing it. They often make assumptions about its readers. The audiences for these various film magazines can vary to a large extent.
Our magazine article neither challenges nor develops forms and conventions as the technical layout is quite classic - there is a main image, a main text body divided into columns with a layout from left to right, a breakout box, a main image and a subsidiary image. We decided to keep it a standard, classic layout as it’s what the audience expects so it’s more accessible for the audience to read form left to right which can be seen in several magazines like 'Empire' and 'Sight and Sound'.
Film posters are fundamentally advertisements which are intended to promote the production to a targeted audience. They aim to indicate the genre of the film and attract audiences in doing so. My target audience was primarily those of 15-25 years of age. However, it is still appropriate for the older generation.
We looked at a range of posters like 'Bridget Jones' Diary' and 'Bend it like Beckham' and they all seemed to follow the same basic path of forms and conventions - images of the mainstream star(s), as well as their name(s), a billing block, a tagline and of course a title.
We decided to challenge the conventions of a typical film poster by including the name of the main actor despite not being a Hollywood star that anyone would know about. This isn’t the normal form and convention of a film poster and we developed it to look more mainstream and professional to appeal to a wider audience.
On the whole we decided to keep the main forms and conventions throughout our media products to allow our products to be more recognizable and accessible for the targeted audience. We decided to modify our film to make it appeal more to the mainstream. We chose to show our film poster and our magazine review in a mainstream way for our short film enabling us to reach a wider audience.
Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
In terms of genre, I think the combination of our short film, magazine review and film poster work well together. There is a comedy element that flows through each of the products which is very much cohesively evident. This is effective because it targets a particular audience. I think it works pretty well together in terms of communicating the narrative to the audience.
To a certain extent we were influenced by other media products such as the cover of 'Here you come again' by Dolly Parton and as well as 'Help!' by The Beatles.
I found this made our poster much more creative and effective.
We tried to follow the similar comedy element throughout our film which is seen within our poster as well as our film magazine review. However we feel that message of genre is not as strong with exception of the main text which utilises its own format rather than implementing ideas that the film company has produced.
Our film certificate is 12a. We considered adhering to the 15 classification though the end product didn't feature content that justified this. This particular classification permits a younger audience than the target, and of course doesn't limit the older generation, attracting a wider audience. Nethertheless we felt the narrative of the film was clear and could be identified without having any previous information of the film. I believe that we have created a product that is satisfactory for our audience. The film is about a immigrant artist who struggles to get by in life within the UK. It’s not how he pictured it to be, but there is no specification of the struggle with our film poster. We decided to do this to reach a wider audience with the audience wanting to know more about the film, although it could give the wrong impression of the narrative. Our film article and poster is targeted at the younger generation as well as the older generation as we did not think there is a need to specify it, especially the film magazine. For example, in 'Sight and Sound' which is a much more formal, intellectual magazine, they reviewed a range of films from ‘U’ to ‘18’.
The film poster approaches the audiences who want to see something of a comical friendly vibe. The magazine review is also fun and witty and approaches that kind of people. It was necessary to target different audiences across different products to enable a wide range of people viewing our film. I believe all 3 of my products work together to reach a wider target audience.
From an institutional point of view, the magazine and poster have different purposes. Audiences may use different products in different ways. For example, they may look at the poster for the genre of the film or may look at the review for a more subjective analysis of the film. The film poster makes you want to see the movie while the magazine article is more independent and gives the audience a third party’s opinion whether or not the film is worth seeing. It allows our film to reach an even wider audience as we followed the normal forms and conventions. It is vital to attract a wider audience and I believe we did achieve this in all three products.
The relationship between the three products from an institutional point of view is to advertise and make it appeal to the audience. Magazine articles discuss and make people want to see the film, endorsing it. The film companies want their film reviewed in magazines as it’s like a third party’s opinion. However sometimes this can make or break a film. It is very desirable from a film companies’ point of view even if the film has been produced as they want to circulate awareness and distribute it, raising viewing figures.
Film posters and magazine articles are important parts of the film as they are the key components to the distribution. It gets your film noticed from a short film to a wider distribution appealing to different audiences. They give the audience an insight to the film, marketing it, but also tells the reader where it can be accessed.
On a production level all three products work together. They complement each other well - we used a screenshot from our film within our magazine review and we used the main image from our film poster in our magazine review. We also took pictures during filming to produce our poster.
Q3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback is an important element when creating media products as you need feedback in order to correct faults as well ensuring you are reaching your target audience.
We received audience feedback for the short film after presenting it to the class. It mostly stated how they thought film was very entertaining, though unclear at times. Some scenes also dragged on too long. We listened to the advice and developed our film to make it clearer. We cut some shots as well as shortening some scenes.
“The ending was unclear”
Another criticism was about the sound being incoherent and as well as the same score being played too frequently, causing a nuisance.
“The volume is jumpy”
Therefore we used headphones and listened carefully to the score thoughout the film, editing the essential areas of sound. We also found a greater variety of suitable copyright free music which we rearranged throughout the film.
Additionally, during the creation of the film poster, we listened and took action upon the feedback we got from the audience. We made several posters and experimented a lot. We had options such as just silhouettes of the cloned actor, as well as coloured and ordinary faces.
“Is it about aliens?”
However the audience thought we should keep it simple and stick with the normal colour faces as it might give an unclear impression that our film is about aliens or another unintended meaning.
Below are two finalised examples of our final poster.
However the audience thought the red background was bold but the white was more prominent.
Technologies like Photoshop and desktop publishing helped string together our final outcomes. The end results were visually pleasurable for our film magazine and poster although we mostly stuck to the normal forms and conventions and made it look professional.
Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stage?
Throughout our research and planning, we learnt a lot about technology and utilised new technologies within the process of constructing our products in order to accomplish the final result.
We used a D.V. camera which is quite dull and gritty, unlike the look given in mainstream, Hollywood films and American soaps which use “celluloid film” which give a much nicer, brighter effect, giving the impression of perfection - perhaps not quite appropriate for out type of film. However, this was all that was available for us. Filmmakers decide whether to use film or digital video cameras depending on the effect that they want i.e. realism. To make up for this, we used upbeat scores and facial expressions to reinforce the comedic, surreal elements.
In terms of sound, we lacked microphones which affected our product as the digital camera was not of high quality so we used as little dialogue as possible.
There was also lighting limitations in some shots in our film but we overcame them by just working with what we had and making sure all indoor lights were on and we shot the outdoor scenes early in the day. So we overcome these limiting factors.
Also, during editing, we used iMovie HD which is non-linear editing software which allows you to move footage around in any order. This was quite useful as it allowed us to drag and drop and cut footage easily giving an awesome effect. However non-linear editing affected the overall product as it we could free move footage around, changing our mind, so the film doesn’t exactly match the original storyboard or script. Nethertheless, it was quite effective as we was able to further develop the film in the editing suite.
The internet was a vital component for us. We used the internet throughout our research and planning, independently gathering information on existing products and viewing existing products on video sharing sites such as Google Video and Youtube.
We also used free sound effects sites like freeplaymusic.com as you can download free copyright music which directly influenced the overall product. We also used iMovie HD and GarageBand for adding the extra sound effects such as the “squeaky door”. We also used the internet, in the form of blogging, to publish research and record progress and planning such as shooting schedules. Our blog utilises ICT greatly as it allowed us to upload images and links, creating much more interactive research and planning.
Our film was given coverage when we published it on YouTube - a video sharing site allowing continued feedback. It can be seen here well as on Facebook.
Moreover, we used a digital camera to capture images for our poster. This was very straightforward and quick at uploading. We then used “Photoshop” photo manipulation software in order to edit and manipulate the images easily. We were influenced by the layering tool on Photoshop allowing us to use several images and then flatten the image into one in the end. This was very beneficial in our development stage allowing us to construct more than one image allowing us to create a complex, artistic poster.
For our magazine review, we used desktop publishing software called Pages - a straightforward way of layouting articles. Most magazine and newspapers use software like “QuarkXPress”, but Pages is less technical and simpler.
Both Photoshop and Pages allowed us to be very creative and experimental allowing us to try out different layouts and ideas for both our poster and magazine review. They are both non-destructive software and so allowed us to be creative and adapt our ideas easily, reacting to audience feedback.
