Codes & Conventions

In our project we were required to use various different technologies. Due to the fact that digital technology is so easily available we were able to use digital video cameras to record our film. This makes it a lot easier to see our film whilst we are filming. We can also preview our film and re-record over it if we need to. The digital cameras were of quite high quality and because digital technology is so common, they are also very affordable. We were able to add effects on the LCD screen whilst filming to give us an idea of how the effect would look before applying it on the screen. We used Adobe Premier Pro to edit our film which is very simple but very effective in editing video. It allows you to do several different things such as saturation and credits to make your film look extremely professional. We also used Photoshop to create and edit our ancillary tasks. Photoshop is a piece of software that is often used in industry to edit pictures and create adverts. As I decided to create the magazine review, I had to learn how to use Photoshop effectively. To do this, I researched Photoshop tutorials. This helped me to use different skills to create a better ancillary piece. The software we used allowed us to save and export our pieces so they weren’t too large memory-wise. We were able to also upload our video onto different websites (web 2.0) such as Facebook and Youtube.

For my A2 media product, me and my group decided to create a short film. We chose this option as we thought it would be quite challenging but very rewarding if we could create one to a good degree. It was also a project that we could all be a part of creatively which would increase the amount of output that came from our group. Within our group we all have various 'talents' and it seemed like a good idea for my group to work together to make the most of these once combined. We also work well within a group, meaning we can give and take constructive criticism without it affecting our work or group negatively, making the group more efficient overall.

To get a general idea of what sort of product we were expected to make, we had to research into existing products. This was made alot easier by amount of digital technology available to us. Using the internet we were able to research other short films to get an idea of conventions. To do this we researched within websites such as 'depict' and 'virgin media shorts.' We also used 'Youtube' to research into previous A2 media short films. The creation of Web 2.0 has increased the amount of interactivity available via the internet. It has made it possible for other film makers to upload their pieces onto the internet for other people to view and comment on other peoples pieces. The increased interactivity of the internet also made it possible for us to create the blogs to show our ideas and progress throughout our project. At the beginning of our project, we held a small focus group just so we had a general idea of what sort of things our film needed to include so it would please our target audience. Our group agreed that this helped alot, as it gave us a set list of things we had to include within our film and also helped us to narrow down our ideas alot. It also helped our main audience feel as if they've had a big part in the film-making process as they shared their ideas with us. We had to research into short films to have a clear understanding of the exact conventions we were meant follow (or challenge if we had a good reason to.) Our group had quite alot of previous knowledge on the conventions of independant films and we tried to combine this knowledge with the new knowledge we'd learnt that affected the short film genre only. The internet helped alot with our research, as short film is quite a specialist genre. Researching into existing products helped us to find subjects, shots and ideas in short films that we thought we really good and helped us alot with some of the things we wanted to portray and how to do it. After researching into short films we were also able to establish the sort of shot types and editing that appeared most. We also researched into different film and television portrayals of teenage girls. This was extremely important once we’d established that our main character was a female teenager. It meant that, in effect, we could ‘pick and choose’ what traits we wanted our character to have to make her most relateable. We were also able to research into different drugs and how they are portrayed in film. This was a very important piece of research for our end product as it meant we could realistically show drug use and the effects of it. We also researched into existing products for our ancillary tasks. This helped a lot as we had a clear idea of different review layouts and posters. We were then able to look at several examples at once and decide what we thought worked well within them. I think our group researched well for our product and we gained a lot of knowledge on short film and various other things like that. Although we researched into several of the main things involved in our project, I think we still could of researched into other short films more and recorded what we found. We could have used various different research methods to gain information such as questionnaire. As we were using Adobe Premier Pro, I thought it would be useful if I researched into basic tutorials so I would be able to do at least the basics involved within creating the piece.

Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback

We Need YOU!

And here it is, the final products of our film. However, we have two possible endings because we just can't decide.....care to help? :)



This is one version. This version doesn't have the full ending but we thought the ending to this one was more effective as it was quite shocking.



Above is version two of the film. Although we preferred this ending, the editing at the end of this one looks very effective and doesn't leave the film on such a cliffhanger.

Enjoy :)

Twitter&Flickr

Media is converging all the time and one of the major outcomes of this has been social networking sites. So we thought one of the best ways to promote our film production company would be to create profiles on social networking sites. That way fans can see any progress we make easily and can also comment on our profiles.

https://twitter.com/filmsecretmedia
-and-
https://flickr.com/filmsecret <--there is also a gadget on the right hand side with some of the pictures we have uploaded onto this.

Below are our finished ancillary tasks:



I believe the poster works very well and portrays the mood of the film very well. It's very dark and shows the character's emotions clearly. The font is impersonal which symbolises the character's exclusion from everyone else. The poster and the review fits very well together as they both have similar themes. Both are very dark and grim. They also use similar images to create specific emotions. They both use similar impersonal fonts and both feature references to drugs. The only negative thing about them is that they both show pictures of our main character using the drugs and this is meant to come as a surprise to the audience when they watch the film.

Above is our film poster and one of the many film posters we took our inspiration from. We thought that the use of several different stills from the film worked well on the poster.


Below is a picture of the 'Kidulthood' review from which I took my inspiration. I really liked the unconventional layout for this review and thought it would work really well with our film.

Audience Feedback

Below are the questions we are going to ask the audience, after they've finished watching our film. From this we will be able to tell whether our film was easily understood.

Audience Feedback

Which of the following do you think the film fits into?

Interactive

Social Realism

Documentary/ Informative

Entertainment

Did you understand the full storyline?

Yes

No

Do you think the use of visual effects were effective?

Yes

No

Do you think the time is filled well?

Yes

No

What did you understand about the film?

What do you think we could improve about the film?

By asking the audience what they undertood about our film, we will be able to find out whether or not we made our narrative clear. If the audience couldn't understand it then we know one of the things to change. Also the questions we asked will help in our evaluation, although they are mostly closed questions, they will give us an idea of what could do to improve our film or our thought processes next time.

Codes&Conventions

Codes and Conventions:

Female:
Carley - Carley follows the conventions for a teenage girl quite closely. She dresses quite casually and wears quite heavy eye make-up. Although she is a teenage girl, she goes against conventions by dressing quite scruffily and not really bothering with her appearance. She is very caring and is extremely worried about the relationship between her and her mother which is a typical trait for a female to have. She is very quiet but does exhibit some anger when she gets frustrated which isn't very typical of a female.
Mother - we tried to make the mother as unconventional as possible meaning the audience will be able to relate and feel sorry for Carley. The mother is shown as uncaring and selfish which is the exact opposite of the usual maternal role of a older female. She is more interested in her own problems than trying to help her daughter with hers. She pays no attention to her daughter and also has a messy house which is very untraditonal of a mother figure. The mother is also uninterested with how her appearance is.
Girls - We tried to follow the usual conventions of teenage girls for the group. They are all quite intimidating and bitchy. They also exclude Carley by the positions they are sat in, making them seem even more intimidating. They talk in very short sharp sentences and one of them is extremely made-up making it obvious that she takes pride in her appearance which is a traditional convention to follow. By making Carley so different from the other females, it will hopefully make the audience feel sorry for her. Also by exaggerating the other characters it makes Carley seem the most relateable.
Teacher- We decided to challenge the conventions on our portrayal of the female teacher. She is seen as very strict and hard. Considering she is a young female teacher this is quite unexpected as you expect her to attempt to help her or at least reason with her. As a female teacher, you also assume that she will take on quite a maternal role. We decided to challenge these to convey to the audience just how much problems Carley has.

Drug Users
In our film we decided to challenge the usual conventions of a heroin user. Carley still attempts to carry on as normal even though she is battling with drugs. The perception of most drug users, especially users of heroin, is that they are dirty and don't do anything with their day. By challenging this, it made Carley seem more 'reachable' by the audience as she is still carrying on with her usual day-to-day routine even though she is suffering from such demons. She is still trying to preogressw ith her life and not just succumb to her problems even though they have got quite bad. The fact that she has constant problems (her and her mum argue, her teacher snipes at her, etc) also makes it easier for the audience to see why she does give in to her temptations.


General:
The mis-en-scene we used was very important as we only have a short amount of time to contextualise the piece. By dressing our main character in very scruffy clothes we were able to show the audience that she is quite sad and that is slightly depressed. The fact that she is sad instantly draws the audience in as thye want to know why she is upset and what the cause of this is.

Our short film is around five minutes long which is around the average length of a short film. It contains a minimal amount of characters and deal with a life issue. It also has a twist at the end (the main character is a drug user) which is consistent with short films.

Rethink Time

Right, sorry about the amount of time that has passed since my last blog post. In the small break we have had to completely re-think our film. Well now the main girl now has problems at home as her parents have split up and her mum has sunk into depression. Her mum is starting to become an alcoholic and pays no attention to how Carley may be feeling about the whole situation. Carley is still trying to carry on with her day to day life as much as possible by attending school and things like that. Even though she is trying to still have a normal life, she has become depressed and goes down the wrong path.

We ended up having to rethink the narrative because it was becoming to hard to include the postcards and still have an effective storyline. The postcards are no longer included now because of this reason. Everything else still stands but she doesn't have a boyfriend or doesn't sell her body for drugs. It is however every apparent that she doesn't have any friends or anyone to turn to when she is having problems.

Also we have decided to not have any sound over the top but simple contain the diagetic sound and dialogue. We also have some non-diagetic sound in the form voiceovers at the start of the film. The voiceovers are used to make the audience aware of the fact that Carley's parents have broken up. The diagetic sound worked more effective than we thought the music would as it makes the audience feel as if they are part of the film more, especially as the diagetic sound is very subtle.

VoiceoverTime

We have chosen to have minimal/no dialogue in our film at all. However we would like to have something like a voiceover at important points of the film.

At the start and possibly the end of the film we plan to have a voiceover. We aren't quite sure what yet but here are some ideas so we can narrow it down:

word definitions:

ad·dic·tion
n.
Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance

-or-

The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

in·flu·ence 

–noun
The capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.
-or-
The action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of another or others.

re·lapse 
To fall or slip back into a former state, practice.

trau·ma 

–noun

An experience that produces psychological injury or pain.

dam·age

–noun

to cause damage to; injure or harm; reduce the value or usefulness of.

harm

-noun

physical injury or mental damage; hurt.

free·dom
-noun

the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint
 
re·cov·er·y

-noun

the regaining of or possibility of regaining something lost or taken away.

We may also have music playing over the top. The choice of music needs to be quite slow but not too slow to drag on too much throughout the film. Also we want a track long enough so it won't need to be looped and therefore become repetitive.

Music Choices..

http://rubywalkera2media.blogspot.com/2010/03/blog-post.html

Above is a link to one of my other group member's blog (Ruby.) She has researched into different music, we could possibly use in our short film.