The Note - A Short Film: Final

In terms of the practical; creating the short film, Jayme and I had specific roles. My main role was mostly filming while Jayme's role was editing.

My Roles:

• Filming
• Storyboards
• Costumes

Jayme's Roles:

• Editing
• Script
• Finding Location

Final Ancillary Tasks

Evaluation Question 4: Answer

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?



Addition:

• Web 2.0 allows us to be a prosumer as well as a consumer; technology allows millions of people worldwide to be able to see our short, whereas a few years ago, only our teacher and the moderator would have been able to see it.
• As well as the other types technology used, I also used my mobile phone to record my audience response. It is an easy way to video and quickly upload it to YouTube/Blogger straight from my phone.

Evaluation Question 3: Answer

What have you learned from your audience feedback?



Uses & Gratifications

Blumler and Katz (1974)

1. Escape and Diversion from everyday life - The story shows how technology today can take over, presenting an interesting way in how the character can escape from the breakup at the beginning of the short; this is something the audience will most likely be able to relate to. The short is an extreme situation which allows the audience to escape from everyday life; indulging in the short.

2. Surveillance and Information - The audience watch the protagonist and gain information about him, they enjoy discovering the story and characters. The short film may also provide information on the world as it is.

3. Personal Relationships - The short film represents a starting point for discussion, where the audience and like-minded people can discuss the film and forge relationships, an opportunity for personal interaction.

4. Personal Identification - The main character is a young adult male, having a relationship through text message, with a young adult female, who we meet at the end of the short. Both characters fit the age of my target audience. He may be relatable in many ways for the audience, providing satisfaction for them, however he represents an extreme of a spectrum on which the audience is situated. Showing them how his reality has been obscured.

The Note - A Short Film

Audience Response

Open Questionnaire Results

Below I have posted my open questionnaire along with a selection of answers for each question to show a range of results from my audience and how they liked the short film. 

Did you enjoy the short film? Explain why?

• Yes I really enjoyed it, I liked the mystery of who the girl was.
• Yes it was really interesting and different.
• It was an easy watch and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• I liked that the flashbacks at the end of the short told the story.

What was your favourite part about the short film?

 

• Loved the music (love Boyce Avenue)
• The flashbacks and finding out what happening.
• I liked the black and white edit to show the difference between past and present.

What was your opinion on the storyline? Why do you think this?

 

• It sucked me in, I wanted to know who the number on the note belonged to.
• Easy to understand and follow.

Is there anything you didn’t understand about the storyline?

 

• No, it was easy to understand.
• No, it was all good.
• It was a little confusing at the start because there is no dialect, I wasn't really sure if they definitely broke up, but apart from that it wasn't too bad.

What was your opinion of the location we chose to use?

 

• Good choice of locations, I really liked the restaurant, cute and quirky.
• Locations were good, but the Christmas decorations were unnecessary.

What is your opinion of the acting?

 

• I really enjoyed the actors performance.
• Acting was professional and believable.
• Overall a good job.

Would you recommend this video to others? Why?

 

• Yes, definitely will show some of my friends.
• It's short and easy to watch so yes!

What is your opinion of the music in the short?

 

• The music fit nicely and the lyrics suited what was happening.
• I really loved the feel the music added to the short.

What parts of the film were most effective? Why?

 

• The black and white flashbacks filling in the story, definitely.
• The first text was really interesting and caught my attention.

Which parts of the film were least effective?

 

• There wasn't much camera movement.
• I would have liked it better if dialogue was used.

Do you have anything else to add? How do you feel we could make the short better?

 

• Show some more of the text messages to show how the relationship grows. 
• Maybe add in dialogue

Closed Questionnaire Results

Open Questionnaire

Create your own user feedback survey

Closed Questionnaire

Create your own user feedback survey

Evaluation Question 2: Answer

How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 1: Answer

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

Refilming

Today we refilmed a couple of scenes for our short film; the scenes of James texting as the texts didn't match up with the texts scene at the end of the short in the flashback scenes. 

Here are a few clips below:

Representation

One of the questions in our media exam is on representation of working class so I am going to start by talking about representation.

Representation is the way in which people or things are represented (e,g, in the media.) The media doesn't show the real presentation of the world: it shows a construction. The more we see of a certain group represented in the media the more it becomes natural to us and it becomes the expected representation or a stereotype. A stereotype is a representation of a person or thing without fine detail.A stereotype often involved judging people/things by their appearance (e.g. judging a person by their hair, makeup, clothes, etc.)

Problems with iMovie

Since we finished all our filming a couple of weeks ago we have been trying to edit using iMovie. However, we have been having some problems with iMovie not allowing us to import our files, being jumpy and really slow, meaning we are slightly behind where we wanted to be by now. Jayme, who is doing most of the editing is trying to sort this out so we can start editing properly.

Narrative Structure Case Study: Pulp Fiction

Narrative Structure

In class we have started our exam theory and at the minute we are learning about the narrative structure and applying this to different films. This shows the theories we have been learning revolving the narrative structure.

Completing Filming

Today we completed all of the filming we need for our short film. At least for now, we haven't looked over the clips and discussed whether any need to be re-filmed or not, but hopefully that will be all of the filming done so we can start editing properly. Below I have added a few clips of some of the shots. 

Final Review

This is the final version of my review:

 

 

What I've Changed:

• I have added the photo in place of the blank box. I like the image because it doesn't give too much away, though this doesn't really matter because the review does anywhere, but you can see that the film is clearly going to be about a couple.
• I have rearranged the synopsis at the bottom just to make it fit the shape of the box more than it previously did.
• As well as this I have also made some slight changes to my review after getting some feedback from my teacher. You can see this in a previous post.

Final Poster

This is the final version of my poster:

 

What I've Changed:

• I have changed the photo to a photo I took this weekend when shooting the short.
• I have moved the reviews down slightly more so they don't cover Joe too much.
• I have moved the title/strapline so they don't cover Joe's face.
• I have changed the colouring of the photo of me so the difference between the two images aren't as dramatic which they originally were due to the difference in lighting.

Filming Update

Photos

While filming this weekend, Jayme and I took some photos to use on our reviews and poster. Here are my photos:

I think these two photos are taken two far away, a medium-close up shot would probably be better than a long shot. You can't see Joe's face.

I like the shot type of this photo. The space on the left hand side leaves space for the photo of the woman. The fact he is looking to the left also adds to this because when the other photo is layered over top, it will look like he is looking at her.

I like this shot for the review. The couple holding hands shows the film is a romance; it's a typical shot for the romance genre. However, the first shot cuts of Joe's head and has people in the background but I like the second photo and think it will work well.

Film Poster Part 6

Apart from the background image, which I will most likely change to a lighter photo, but will be a similar photo of James in the background, this is my finished poster. I have included all the logos of the companies/film festivals involved as well as adding the catch line to the poster, under the title.

Film Poster Part 5

I have changed my poster a lot since yesterday as I was having trouble choosing a background to use.

 

• I have changed all of the details from the poster to opposite sides.
• I have added a blurred photo of James in the background. However, I haven't decided if this photo that is going to stay as I think it is too dark for the poster. I might take some still shots when shooting the final scenes to use as the background. I have just used this photo as an idea.
• I have changed all the font to white to make sure it can be seen on the poster.
• I have started to had some logos of brands that could have been associated with the short film, for example Film 4. Here I will also be including the film festival award/logo here.

Review Part 4

This is the final draft of my review, apart from the fact that it doesn't include an image. The image will be taken when filming the final scenes as I will take along a stills camera with us to take the photo.

I have expanded my review to make it fit the columns fully. As well as this, I have been able to get the text to wrap around the red circle by making the circle in Photoshop and saving it as a JPEG. This got around the problem I was having of the text in the circle wrapping instead of the large blocks of text wrapping.


I have added the names of the director and editor etc. to the credits at the bottom after discussing with Jayme the names we would use. 

Film Poster Part 4

• I have created the credits that will be found at the bottom of my posters. I used the font SF Movie Poster from 1001fonts.com and edited them together on Photoshop. The credits include the producers, director, stars, editor, director of photography and music.

• I have added the credits to the bottom left hand corner of the poster.
• I have added a background, which I got the colour of by using the eyedropper tool on the £5 note to get a similar colour. However, I do not like this background and will be attempting to find a new background to change it too, but for now, I will use this.

Film Poster Part 3

 

• Here I have changed the font of the title to the font Jayme and I chose together.
• I have added these images at the bottom that credit the film for being involved with film festivals. I have seen these on various short film posters such as Colours, the one I took these from:

Poster Title 2

This is the font Jayme and I have decided to use for the title on our film posters. It is from 1001fonts.com

Film Poster Part 2

This is my short film poster so far.

• I have justified my image to the right hand side to allow space for information and title as originally I had the image in the centre, taking up most of the page, but there was no space for the title and other information. This is what it looked like at first:

• I have changed the font of the title again as I am still not sure what font I like best, and what font I think fits the poster more. I am going to keep changing the font throughout the process of making my poster until I find a one I want to keep. I also need to look at fonts with Jayme so we can choose a font together. All fonts are from 1001fonts.com
• I have added information to the poster such as the name of the director and the star actor as well as adding reviews from magazines of the short. These should hopefully convince people to watch the film.
• I have started to create some credits for the film at the bottom. I am busy looking for the right fonts that will make the credits look like credits from professional film posters.

Review Extension

After changing the size of my font on my review I realised that I had not written enough to fill the space so I have extended it. I have been reading many reviews to try and find ideas of what to write in it. This is my finished review.

Film Poster Part 1

First I have started to edit the photo.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

• I took way the background the make it transparent.
• Changed the colour of the photo to make it look more natural as the lightning when taking the photo made me look more yellow.
• I have changed the colour of the area under my arm as it looked quite green due to the reflection of the green screen. To do this I used the Eyedropper tool to pick a similar colour of skin from around the area and then used the Brush Tool to paint over the arm.
• I deleted any unnecessary details around the edge for example the hair hanging down under my arm or the straps off my bracelet.

Poster Title

I have been looking for fonts to use as the masthead for my poster. Since the film revolves around the idea of someone writing their number on a £5 note, I wanted the title be a handwriting style font. This is the one I've chose to use at the minute, however, this may change.

Poster Photos

Today, I took some photos that I may want to use as the photo for my poster. My main idea for my poster is to have Jennifer (me) holding up the £5 note with her number on to her camera, covering her face, or most of her face. I like this idea as Jennifer isn't revealed until the end of the short film and this way it still keeps her a mystery even in the poster, it doesn't spoil anything.

Here are the photos I took today:



This is the one I am using:

 

I like this photo because it covers the woman's face which is what I wanted to do seeing as you don't find out who the woman is until the end of the film: it doesn't spoil the mystery. As well as this the £5 note is situated in the centre and is a key feature to poster which I like as this is the object that controls the narrative.