Evaluation - How did you use technologies in the construction stage and in research planning and the evaluation stage?

We initially had final cut express 4 but we had to wait for final cut pro since we needed to use the split screening effect which wasnt available in express.

Furthermore Final Cut Pro enabled to do many things such as:

• Capture and edit our film
• change the decibals of sound
• slow motion effect
• synchronising music with the video footage
• transitions
• speed control
• split screening
• four shot scene - helped us manipulate time,
• slow motion effects - very effective when the girl hits into the gate making it much more humourous.

We used the Sony HVR A1VL which were very useful since they were easy to use with its touchscreen. They had beautiful high definition footage which is a compelling feature. It made our film very high standard and professional looking. We were able to use the motion blur effect and capture high resolution footage in any conditions.

Indesign CS4 was a great use to us since it enabled us to create our magazine review. It allowed us to produce a double page review which consists of many film review conventions. The programme allowed us to import our own pictures, use any fonts from a wide variety. The themes of our magazine review helps to keep a coherient style between the poster, film and review. We've learnt that the resolution of a picture matters and only high resolution images should be used.

For our evaluation stage Final Cut gave us the ability to record anything that goes on the screen. Also we used powerpoint to create slideshows. This helped us layout the evaluation clearly. FinaL Cut would allow to gather everything on one screen so we could analyse it.

Evaluation - What have you learnt from your audiences feedback?

VOX POPS:

We asked four people to watch our film and look at our print based tasks then interviewed them on camera. we asked a series of questions to
-2 girls
-2 boys

We chose these people specifically to make sure we never had any biased decisions made. Also, the mixture of boys and girls meant that we received opinions from both sides of our audience.

We wanted to ask these four members of our target audience whether or not our short film, Film review and poster were effective for example, would the ancillary tasks attract our audience and make them want to watch the short film. We wanted to copy the real media industry as close as possible to reflect upon our professionalism. this meant that we had to gather people from our audience and question them just like how the media industry creates focus groups and uses them for market research.

The questions we asked were as follows:

1. Do you think that the ancillary tasks were coherent with the film?
2. Do you think the music is effective and fitted well with the film?
3. Do you think it followed conventions of short films?
4. What would you change and why?
5. Would you pay to watch the short film after?

Most of our target audience commented that we had a contained narrative which meant we had a start, middle and end which showed us that we produced a clear narrative and were able to complete a whole story in just under 5 minutes. Also we were successfully able to subvert the normal boy chases girl stereotype by having the girl chasing the boy in our film. Some people stated that we lacked dialogue however not much teenagers watch short films so they weren't able to recognise the conventions of short films is the use of minimal dialogue so we believe we have successfully adhered to this convention.

A few mentioned that our dream sequence was to long which is why we cut down abit towards the end. We used the four shots scene to manipulate time and also cut down a scene since it seemed unecessary. We were pleased with our final production since our target audience were able to relate to our film.

Evaluation - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

For the design on the tone of the review we decided to adhere to the colourful tone. Such a tone not only highlights the feeling of the film but also creates a dreamy, unrealistic effect. The colours used for our brand identity consists of primarily red, pink and blue. The use of a black background will help the bright playful colours stand out.

The poster will and need to be seen from different distances; therefore it needs to be universally noticable. Also the design should not be unnecessarily complex, it should be able to maintain its detail.

Because we are trying to aim the review and poster at a wider audience, we need to take into consideration people that have a disability with colour recognition. It is important that they are designed to give the same effect and meaning with or without colour. This means that the size and fonts used should be able to create effects alone. We used split screen in the film, poster and magazine review which has helped maintain the same feel throughout. The split screen has helped us show the contrasting lives of both characters.

The conventions used in many film reviews are very similar. The review of the film "Julie and Julia" has conventions such as the following. A main picture which conveys the mood of the film alone. A bold title which is displayed clearly above all other text. Also the tagline is usually displayed under the title, this is done so that the audience get a rough idea of the mood of the film. The colours used are always coherient to the film. If the film is comical and funny then the colours used are bright and joyful. If the film is spooky then the colours are dark and mysterious. We followed most of these conventions in our film review. We placed our tagline above all text so that our audience can inhabit a particular mood before reading the review. However we subverted one of the conventions by not including the title of the film. We reckon that our film should be popular enough to be noticed without a title on our review. One final convention we adhered to was placing an image which would convey the mood of the film alone. We edited the picture using photoshop to be able to smudge the background into a heart shape. The heart symbolises love so this helps understand what the film is about without actually watching it.

We were inspired to create this kind of profile page for our Magazine review since we saw that the majority of teenagers use facebook network in everyday life, this meant that the profile style was very common with our target audience. Also we wanted to show that Maggie and Danny are normal teenagers so that our target audience can reflect their own social lives on our characters lives.

The "Drag me to hell" poster is very conventional. As you can see in this poster the font of the title is written much bigger compared to the tagline, this helps it stand out. Also the title is written in white in contrast to the rest of the dark colours used in the rest of the poster. In this poster they have subverted the conventions of the male character being the protagonist. The use of colours and lighting is very dark and dull, the audience are given more of a creepier and sinister atmosphere. In our poster we also subverted the idea of the male being the main character by displaying the female protagonist in the center of our poster. In contrast to the "drag me to hell" poster we used colourful and bubbly fonts to portray a more playful mood. Other conventions we followed including the release date and tagline at the bottom of the poster. Also one main convention with the layout of the poster is using the rule of thirds. This rule helps us display a more clear picture to the audience.

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

We used similar camera shots for both Dannie and Maggie to show that even though they are both two completely different people they still lead similar lives. We were able to use the same character shots within the split screening to reflect both teenagers life. We used the over the shoulder shot at the end of our short film to create suspense and leave the audience wondering on how the film ends. This camera shot enabled us to have this reaction on the audience. We used a few scenes with handheld camera to make it look more real and also it puts our audience in our characters shoes. We used this in scenes like the romantic scene in the dream when Maggie puts the had on Dannies head. This was one of our cheesy, romantic scenes within the dream however we wanted it to have a sense of realism. Throughout the film we made sure we used natural lighting since it makes it look much more real rather then artificial making it look like a normal day in a teenagers life allowing our audience to reflect on their own lives while watching out film. We had a few problems with the weather since there was a time when we wanted to film in the rain for our dream however it didn't work out since it never rained the whole week. Instead we had to change the scene. We tried filming the first bit of the film were the weather was rainy, dark and dull to reflect on Maggies ugly and unpopular life, however for the dream we tried filming it when it was sunny and light to give that fantasy, dreamy effect. After watching a few clips from ugly betty and shallow hal we were influenced by their sense of style and attitude. Both characters had a very funky, colourful. messy style which is the look we wanted our Maggie to have. We used the glasses and lipstick to portray this messy, untidy effect. For our soundtrack it was very hard to find something that suited with the feel of our film. At first we tried making our own music however we found it very hard to find something that was good for both the dream and outside the dream. To help us out with what kind of music we were looking for we listened to Shallow Hal's and Ugly bettys main theme songs and chose to find something similar. We chose to not add much dialogue since it would make our film much more fantasy and dreamy. We subverted the normal conventions of a short film by doing this since when we analysed short films such as "the black button" they had alot of dialogue to reflect on the seriousness of the film however we followed the conventions of "lovefield" since they use alot of music however lacks dialogue. Also using alot of music throughout our film adds to the comic tone we wanted.

Final Film