evaluation - harry hemingway-mcghee & megan o'connor
TRANSCRIPT
1. In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We’ve successfully developed an idea on paper into an engaging thriller film
Like other big budgeted productions, it has gone through the same processes of production
Followed conventions of thriller films: Protagonist vs. Antagonist/Good vs. Evil
Applied the concept of Motif and Themes
Development from Paper to Movie
We started working on the film approximately 3 months before we started school - brainstorming ideas and a potential plot line
Harry initially wrote a 73 page script, but had to reduce it down to a short film
We used professional software to write the script, and various methods of online research to gauge audience response
Development from Paper to Movie
Harry initially wrote a 73 page script, but had to reduce it down to a short film
Edits were constantly made to improve plot line, replicate conventions and adding in characters/direction
Development from Paper to Movie
Used SimpleMind App to brainstorm initial ideas
Used industry standard scriptwriting software, Adobe Story to produce, develop and revise script
Processes of Production
3 Stages of Production
Pre Production, Planning, Audience Research, Funding
FILMING
Post Production - Editing, Colouring, Sound Design/Construction, Effects
Summary Q1
First of all we had to look at codes And Conventions For Short Films. When making our short film, we had to follow certain codes and conventions to help make our film look more professional. By researching narrative, genre and different types of cinematography, it helped us to be able to be knowledgable about the film industry before starting to produce our own short film. The first thing we learnt about was narrative, and how storyline is important in engaging an audience. We looked at lots of theorists and shortfilms 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 and Barthes code 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, we looked 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, slowmotion, sped up some footage, or handheld footage.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We feel that the combination of our short film and our ancillary tasks are effective as they all cover the codes and conventions of real media products. For example, all three have a specific genre, thriller. As a pair we have ensured that all 3 will attract the target audience we initially set out to target. This is because we followed all of the codes and conventions of a real film in order to make it look more professional and be more effective.
Q2.
We believe that all our tasks were of an excellent standard, but we put a lot of time and focus into our short film. If we had to change anything about our products it would perhaps be to make a few different versions of our poster, then we had more to pick from, but we unfortunate, found ourselves short on time.
Q3. What have you learnt from audience feedback?
Radio Trailer: Used conventions of a thriller radio trailer - Music, sound effects, quotes from the film
Gave an overview of the film
Gives the listener a feel of what the film will be like Poster:
• Areas I struggled with most – sound and titles
• How to make the tra
Q3 - Poster
Adding reviews will attract more people, and make it look more official
The picture was fantastic and did what it was supposed to do
Add in time of release - advertisement for the film
Q3 - Film
Areas to improve:
Sound and titles
Use of sound and music
Making titles work effectively
Continuity issues resolved
Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Research and Planning :
Used YouTube to watch several trailers that were under the same genre
Blogged helpful research
Blog enabled details to be in one place and easy to access and view
Google images used for research
KeyNote, Pages, Final Draft & Adobe Story for planning of film
Q4. Construction
Final Cut Pro to edit
Hit Film Express to colour and sound produce
iTunes, Final Cut Pro for Sound Effects
Ableton for composed music
Pages to create poster
Main Photo used edited in iPhoto - Alterations to colours and vibrancies
Q4. Evaluation
Blogger allows me to share planning stages as well as final evaluation
Research into other evaluations to see different approaches
Broad variety of software allows choices on how to approach it