CONNOR BARBORA2 MEDIA COURSEWORK EVALUATION

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?After research into the codes and conventions of short films (Thursday 19 September, 2013 – Codes & Conventions blog post), short films are generically short time bound and have a limited amount of characters, this is because in the short amount of time the audience has viewing the film, having less characters allows them to connect better, having a wide span of characters doesn't’t allow for much character development and thus potential confusion within the plot. ‘The Ellington Kid’ (Friday 20 September – The Ellington Kid) is a good example of this as there is two man characters, one you could argue is the narrator. They are the only characters with some or limited context but enough to give a regional background and perhaps some pre-empted stereotypes. My short film challenges these conventions of a small character base as my short contains 5 characters which each speaking roles and purpose within the film. I used dominant screen time and framing to portray importance in my piece as arguably the two main characters which centralized (Screen Shot 1) and had more in frame time to connote main characters as they are the protagonist.

Another convention of short films is because of how concise they can be, the narrative has to be kept simple and easy to follow. I believe my broke these conventions through the 5 characters and the numerous different locations could of spanned off into a number of endings and climax’s to the narrative, my audience was left open to new ideas when in the final scene all of them carried weapons (Screen Shot 2) and had a apparent temperament. Another convention is having a minimal budget, for some production companies there is no real figure. I did not challenge this concept as if we remove the software costs such as premiere pro and Photoshop. The only real cost was mise-en-scene such as the blood (6:11 / Screen Shot 3), buying t-shirts for my actors and Co2 (6:09) canisters for the air pistol. Real media products would of taken a step further and bought action essentials and paid an editor to create a very realistic gun shot and wound. Much like ‘Memorise’ (Friday 20 September) who uses high budget to present gun warfare with higher verisimilitude.

Overall, a short film allows for much more creativity and abstraction. The director is able to use more creative flair, placing their own signature look on the piece as there is less pressure to make a profitable film for a larger audience. I did not challenge this convention as a significant section of my script was pastiches towards other feature films that fall in the same genre such as lock, stock and two smoking barrels, shaun of the dead, snatch e.t.c. My film was not aimed at a more sincere audience as I leaked a lot of comedy aspects into my short film that could be seen as cult humor. (Refer to 2:54 / Screen Shot 2). On the other hand, in my research of short films creativity is a vivid code in most of the successful shorts, they all have their house styles or unusual formats. ‘The Boss’ is very diverse as the niche market it targets is anime enthusiasts, as much as anime is a mass market the creators of ‘The Boss’ have made placed a live action twist to it, they keep all the generic conventions of an anime.

(Codes & Conventions Blog Post) Look back at my codes and conventions research virtual distribution is one of the conventions. I have both used and developed this code as the main access to Narco is through video sharing sites such as YouTube. Generically short films do not get created into DVD’s and sold on shop floors as that would increase the budget and therefore breaking another convention. I did however attempted to develop this convention as I held private screenings with family and friends for my short film, this allows my niche audience to view my short film outside of the web 2.0.

I have developed a convention within my given genre of the crime genre. This crime genre is targeted towards more sincere audiences and want perhaps are higher verisimilitude and more factual text rather than a crime with unconventional actors and dark humor. I have broken the conventions and added humor and remixed lines from other films, to create a pastiche which you could argue audiences would appreciate as some of the context could link to other texts and create a sense of familiarity for the audience.

Developing Conventions of Real Media ProductsIn my research I looked at narrative structure (Narrative Structure - September 19 2013). I developed real media products through narrative, after researching narrative structure, different I understood different types of narrative that can be portrayed. My film used a linear narrative structure and has a beginning (Character & context establishment) → Middle (Conflict begins / expands) → End (Climax and resolution of the plot). However in my text I use various elements that encourages the Beginning and Middle to interlink, the conflict within the narrative is handed to the audience very early on and as my niche market understands gangster crimes that understand some of the colloquial language used to give more context to the plot. The ‘middle’ of the linear process is prolonged and most of the short is based around the continuous conflict, this is how I have developed real media products by altering traditional narratives.

It can be argued that I developed real media products in the narrative by breaking the conventions of gangster crime features, my two male protagonists were in love. I presented this through many technical aspects such as having more than half of their shots include both of them in frame, connoting their relationship to be more than friends. Other mise-en-scene aspects reinforced this idea as the stereotyped household of two gay man would be neat and bright, well groomed and dressed. I wanted the whole gay love situation within the narrative to be very subtle so as to not through the audience of the plot, as breaking conventions can displease audience as the prefer similarity over original. Stereotyping was used a lot throughout my piece as many conventions allow stereotypes to build the generic code such as the gangsters boss.

I wanted to convey meaning within my text, through the dialogue the protagonist refer a lot to wanting or having ‘a day off’ connoting they revolve around a busy lifestyle and a break is a big part for them. The audience in meant to sympathies with the protagonist as they are presented as innocent, naive and young early on in the piece. The is presented through the dialogue and the camera never looking up at them, they are never above the camera until the last shot where they kill the antagonist. Furthermore breaking the fourth-wall was used at various points throughout to reinforce the connection between audience and the protagonists (6:54 / Screen shot 3)

Narco Snatch

Challenging the forms of real media products

In the research I did, title sequences were the generic form of how a crime film introduced its characters and gave some brief context. However, the main title sequence is within the conventions, I used a time lapse in my text which is not in forms of real media products, the time lapse connotes time passing peacefully as my protagonists were sleeping. On the other hand, I did not follow in the codes by introducing all my characters within the first minutes of the film. I played the narrative game and allowed the characters to be introduced through the conflict which it could be argued allows for my context and pre-empted stereotypes to be made on the characters referred too. Contrast to other older crime genres who have words over a black background such as ‘Goodfellas’ (1990), more contemporary films within the genre are having words over video, this could be due to save time, especially in the case of crime genres, as it is less common to find a gangster crime in short films are the narrative tends to be longer, hence the argument of why I could not have each character introduced like ‘Snatch’.

Ancillary Tasks (Poster & Magazine Review)

How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts? PosterI believe that my poster works very well for the first impressions I am trying to convey. Between my poster and short film there is prominent synergy. For example the font Arial (Body) has been used throughout my film, the poster and magazine review, creating a house style. I created the logo of narco to be very minimal as this logo was used on many other various texts to mark the work. I have all my characters positioned on the poster with the two protagonists centered which creates a sense of similarity with the audience as they are given minimal context about the film by the poster. You will notice that keeping within the conventions of film posters, characters are presented breaking the fourth wall to connect with the audience. Hence these reasons argue the fact that my ancillary task is effective and fits its purpose.

Much like some of Guy Ritchie film posters, he likes to present as much context about his text as he possibly can. I have used this style and included the characters names above the heads to introduce the cast before the film has started, I did this to keep the verisimilitude within my script, in natural conversation you do not constantly say other peoples names as it sounds to forced in the dialogue. I have used other elements to introduce the characters. The poster is very minimal which reflects the very linear narrative structure in my actual text. Drop shadow has been used to push the characters from the background further forward to reinforce the connection between them and the audience. The two marginalized characters are the antagonists within the text, they are positioned on the side, with closed body language such as crossed arms, this contrast to the protagonist being open, it can be argued that the antagonists are clearly separated from the protagonists in the poster.

The purpose behind this poster was to create awareness and create hype surrounding my short film, to make my audience anticipates its release. The ambiguity of the poster would make audiences want to watch it, my target audience (Male, 18 and over) are stereotyped in enjoying action related films which impacting words and tough headlines. I achieved this through narco’s tagline “If you’re going to kick authority in the teeth you might as well use two feet”, this sentences ultimately emphases the themes that may be presented in the film which is a success in its own right as its can intrigue and excite my target audience. I have seen this poster be successful first hand as one of my target audiences (Austin, 19) commented “It looks like one of those film that makes you want to get a big group of pals and watch together’. This qoute reinforces my general aim from this text as I want my short film to quckily gain cult status.

I did face a challenge which I overcame, generically such posters such as the Star Wars Saga and Blade Runner, the main character is the size of the poster, low opacity and looking off into the distance connoting the story is about his/her journey. There is an extra character in my short film who has only had about 30 seconds screen time, Jimmy (Callum Welsh) who was not portrayed in the poster. I believe this to be Jimmy had no affect on the climax of the film so as to keep continuity throughout my texts and ancillary tasks, I did not portray him in my work. Lastly, I believe I have increased the hype from this text as ”…The most anticipated film of the year” cements its purpose to gain interest in the film. I believe my poster was successful in creating synergy with my short film and overall the poster is a complete success.

How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts? Magazine Review

Furthermore, I believe that the combination of my main and ancillary texts are effective with my magazine review as well. This is because I have used the typical conventions of a film review, through my research of ‘total film’ and ‘empire’ I have structured my review in a similar style to theirs. I have used an image from the film, it varies between screen shots of the film or staged photo’s. In my case I have used a large spread of my two protagonists. I believe this spread in successful because the protagonists are pointing guns towards their heads, except Sonny (Jack Copas) has his fingers pointed to his head in a gun gesture, which connotes he is more of an amateur contrast to Jay (Ryan Parkes), once again we see characters breaking the fourth wall which is within the codes and conventions and general common practice for reviews. It is also within the conventions to have words, frequently the name of the film over the image, thus to save extra room for the written part of the review surrounding the image(s). I have all the generic elements to a review such as plot, verdicts, cast, run time e.t.c. this all adds up to create a higher surface level accuracy and ultimately creating a sense of high budget as high quality finish to my texts. Hence, these similarities argue that my ancillary tasks are effective as I have created a film review page that uses codes and conventions successfully.

The only factor that I feel was my weakness within my review was the written section. This is because it lacked the typical review style, it is difficult to talk about your own work while keeping a good balance of criticism and positive substance within the writing. However, with that said I did have great success in the conventions of the written layout, having all text justified in their sections and including the fold line down the centre were a real magazine would fold over. None the less I believe all the aspects of my magazine review add up to create a very professional and realistic review on my short film.

Overall, I did not face too many challenges in the elements of my review poster. The only other concern that I had me was the switch from Photoshop to InDesign. I originally tried to create my review in Photoshop which is primarily a photo manipulation software, In juxtaposition to this InDesign is the software to create such examples as my review magazine, it understands layouts, text and images more than Photoshop. Moreover, I am very happy with all the elements in my review, the conventions allowed me to create a very professional look which compliments my film along side my other ancillary tasks.

Audience FeedbackI hoped that the majority of my feedback would be from my targeted audience (Male). But it could be argued that having some female feedback I have a wider span of criticism. Which is in itself constructive to here more negative parts about my text.

9 out of 30 responses I received were from people who were under the age rating for narco. This is a good opportunity to see if anybody under the age of my rating, believes it should be an 18 or not.

I was very happy with the outcome of this question when over 80% of my audience believed that it should fall into an 18 rating and even though some of the surveyors were understand, it still proved that even under-age audience believed it still fits into a 18+ rating.

Thing only part of the survey that I believed I could of done better was in this question I needed a defiant answer Yes or No to just whether the majority of people enjoyed my text. For whatever reason there is, I put in ‘not sure’ which allowed people to put an answer down which does not help me. None the less, none of my surveyors said they did not enjoy narco, we is an achievement for me to make my short film enjoyable for my target audience.

The only publication I used for my target audience was twitter, I would tweet out some of my ancillary tasks and the final cut of narco. So it is good to see that twitter is top of the chart. Facebook second up because I have my twitter linked to my Facebook and when I want to, anything I tweet is them placed as a ‘status’ on Facebook. All of this widens my area of publication for narco.

The majority of my audience put crime as the main genre for narco next to action, which suggests I have been successful in aiming my short film at an audience looking at the crime genre. In my opinion with all the elements I use within my stereotyped piece. I created a more comedy crime genre much like lock, stock and two smoking barrels who uses dark humour and gritty mise en scene to create a very specialised humour. I helped established my genre through music, I have two mains scores, one calm and slow paced score before the conflict began and one after, the second was very artificial and faster. Through the theory of audiences, audiences recognise different music with different genre. Hence why I added more diegetic sound to my text, this may of helped establish the genre more.

This question may have been difficult for my audience, as I was constantly framing Jay and Sonny together as much as possible. It could be argued that due to dialogue within the text, Ryan was the main character as he was seen to be above Sonny like a mentor and the audience may of followed Ryan through his teaching. Contrast to other crime features, a humble narrator is generically used, for example in ‘snatch’ Turkish is as much as a character as he is the narrator to the audience. My text has not narration. This could be why the audience was funnelled to choose Jay.

This was a big factor of why my film was 18 rated, I wanted to know even though its rated at the top age bracket, was there any controversial issues that even my target audience didn’t agree with. Some of my dialogue could be seen as inappropriate as I use 36 swear words with my film. It could ne argued that like ‘Clockwork orange’ this type of inappropriate content is an acquired taste to some audiences.

One of my personal worries as the director and writer was people would not follow the narrative as I did not follow the conventions of a crime genre, I did not have a title sequence introducing all the characters within the piece. This could possibly explain why 6 out of 30 people did not follow the plot.

These Reponses made me appreciate some of the hard work I have done, the camera work was voted the strongest technical aspect, the angles I used were varied, static and motion, edited and more. The camera work allowed me to convey emotion, build suspense and present characters dominance within the piece.

This question allowed to see if my camera work paid off and the audience reacted to how I used framing and dominance in frame. Overall Ryan is framed the most out of all the actors, the sub-conscious reaction from the audience shows Ryan was the prominent actor they thought about because he was in most shots.

This are some of the only qaulative information that I recovered from my survey. The majority of my audience was talking about the pacing, some moments need to be shot and edited quicker than some to keep the flow of my short film appropriate. Some of the responses were about the narrative and slight confusion about justification of the murders. I thought in my dialogue I had made it clear but in the conventions of a crime genre, there is a much longer story line and it takes time to build up suspense. 7 minutes is long enough as it is. Some of the more constructive criticism was attempt to re-script and use more original lines. I believe this is true but I wanted to create a pastiche in my crime genre as that is in some of the codes and conventions, films like ‘Hot Fuzz’ has lines from other films in the same genre such as ‘Bad Boys 2’ & ‘Point Break’, furthermore they use self reference from their previous work e.g. jumping over the fence and eating a cornetto in all 3 films of the cornetto trilogy. However I believe I could of stuck with some of the conventions and introduced the characters in the title sequence just like other crime features.

93% would recommend narco to a friend and the other 7% wouldn’t, this is most likely due to the vast amount of inappropriate content within the film. My audience on the whole thought my film averaged out at around 8 out 10 for a short film, which compliments my 4 out of 5 stars effectively. With all this feedback I have learnt a lot, it could be argued that all my comments from the audience were varied and I have learnt a lot from them.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?What would I change?From all the responses I have gathered, I notice a lot of the criticism lies around the narrative and script. If I were revamp my short film I would add a mini introduction sequence that is linked to the intro which introduces the characters to the audience, one of my main problems was ‘character confusion’ I did not formally introduce the characters to the audience. We is breaking the conventions of a crime genre as frequently you will find a narrator throughout the film.

Moreover, after the line delivered by Jimmy “Vito’s yard was hit last night” should be immediately followed by a sequence of the high-jacking of the drugs, using a motivation shots to increase the context. This is a very common convention within my genre as this allows audiences to consume context about the plot and subsequently the characters and build a speculation on them.

Furthermore, I would adapt my script to meet more original scripting demands. As I see my writing skills as my Achilles heel, I felt necessary to be heavily influenced by other films as the films I research held cult status and have achieved viral memes through gestures and quotes. A significant amount of my female audience gave me direct feedback about the excessive of curse words within my text. I would argue that the swearing helps the conversations flow as the characters are stereotyped as gritty and un-mannered hooligans. But if I were to revamp the short film I would expand my audience span and hope to open my reach to more females, turning down the amount of swearing and increasing the amount of witty comments within the text could attract a wider audience and increase the comedy sub-genre within my piece.

Finally, I would create a narrator which would be Jay (Ryan Parkes)having Jay as a character and narrator is much like the theme within‘Memento’ the protagonist was a character and a breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience. I believe that this would increase the clarity within my narrative and increase viewer entertainment to feel more connected than watching two characters on a short journey.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Summary of Responses

All of the feedback I received was from varied audiences and all carried different opinions on my film. My contemporary aim is too please my target audience and I believe I achieved that, segmenting my results I is clear that I have achieved my goal and pleased my specific audience. I would argue this by comments such as ‘Make it longer!’, “Make a real film’ and other congratulatory comments. This suggests that my audience enjoyed watching my short film and therefore I achieved my overall goal.

However, as previously discussed much constructive criticism has been shared and most if not all can only be achieved by drastically changing the text. I would have to make it longer, however it was clear that my short film was long enough and involved much character development. I have not just side-lined these responses as I am the type of individual that likes to hear about anything negative, as this enables me to build on the same suggestions for my target audience.

Overall, I am pleased with my responses from the surveyors as they do share their dislikes but also give me the confidence as they praise me for my work.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction stage?

As a previous Creative & Media Diploma I had some creditable knowledge forsome of the software and equipment that was going to be used in theconstruction stage on my piece. I brought this knowledge into play first in myAS Thriller opening sequence. Upon reflection I noticed how steady and creative my camera angles have become on the contrast between AS and A2.

I used Photoshop and InDesign in the ancillary task construction. I am veryPhotoshop literate as I have used it nearly coming 5 years religiously in and outOf school. Creating the poster wasn’t the hard part, designing and touching up the elements within the poster was the struggle I faced. On the other hand, when I had to use InDesign (which I had only encountered a number of times) for my review, I had to refresh and understand the fundamentals again this meant watching a couple of tutorials online. I soon got to grips with InDesign again and was able to begin efficient construction of my review. Having constant access to a MacBook was a major advantage as I was able to edit and create my texts from anywhere and allow me to experiment more frequently. I used Premiere Pro in 95% of my short films creation, when starting the video editing part of my short film I understood the basic and more of Premiere Pro. Through the creation and constant experimentation in Premiere I have widened my potential by learning more advanced techniques and video editing skills that all contributed to make my short film more ascetically and technically pleasing. Uses tools such as stabilization I managed to make shots that suffered from bad steady camera usage into a useable clip. In my mind I have a very minor case of OCD and not only my digital documents but real life possessions are very organised and neat. Having a clear layout for footage and sound e.t.c. removed a lot of hassle and allowed for more fluid editing sessions.

How did you use new media technologies in the research stage?

I used a wide array of new media technologies in the research stage of my short film. Primarily Google was used as the basis for all knowledge gathering, codes and conventions, genres of short films and even examples were all searched through Google, however I feel like Google did not allow me to reach information that could have been useful as they were keeping me within my filter bubble, as an alternative using ‘DuckDuckGo’ would of allowed me to search with out being funnelled.

All social media was used as a source to reach my audience and publicise my work. Furthermore Facebook and Twitter were used to advertise my survey and receive responses, using web 2.0 such as this allows my audience to share my survey with others, this will ultimately increase the number of responses I received. Blogger was the hub for all the research as I had gathered as it acted like an online book, hosting all my work.

My survey was created using Google drive. This easy to use online application allowed me to quickly create my survey and gave me constant live updates about the amount of reply's and an option to edit any part of the survey in seconds. Furthermore, Slide Share will be used to present this evaluation that you are watching right now. I use this application as it allows me to embed my slide shows in my blog allow for easier accessibility.

Lastly, I used video sharing web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. In my research of short films (see 10 blog posts on short film analysis) most of the films that I analysed were found on Vimeo. This sites allows producers from amateur to professional to post their work, I feel the community is surrounded by more film enthusiastic rather than your everyday web browser. Youtube was the prime for some of the research I did into premiere pro and InDesign as YouTube is a flood with tutorials on how to overcome problems or how to create something great in these software's. Finally, YouTube played host to all the video posts by me about my short film from direct conversation with the camera to posting drafts, YouTube held them all under Public or Unlisted settings.

How did you use new media technologies in the planning stage?

Comparison between final and storyboarded

In the planning stages I used new media technologies to create my storyboard, the storyboard would allow me see what I am working towards time and visual wise. I drew out all the frames to my piece, photographed them and imported them to premiere pro. After importing them too Premiere pro I had to crop some of the frames down to achieve the best quality frames I could.

After doing so, importing all the frames onto the timeline I then had to begin to add diegetic sound and music. This would allow the most accurate depiction of my text without any footage. However, A lot of my plot has changed along with many shots within my piece, I would argue that the storyboard was a great start point for me but became slowly less effective towards the end of my short film.

As you can see by the diagram to the right. There is a clear example showing how my storyboarding has progressed to the real text. Although there has been alternative shots and a new plot development, the storyboard acted as the back bone and helped me on all my shooting days.

Furthermore, Blogger was used throughout my planning as the storyboard and frames were documented using blogger. Blogger allowed me to show my progress through the planning stages of my text.

How did you use new media technologies in the evaluation stage?To begin my evaluation I needed to produce and publish a review for my text. This was used in Google Drive as I am very literate with this web app. Next, I had to get my survey out into the public, this was done using social networking as this allowed other people to share my review and therefore receive a wider range of audience span.

I used Facebook and Twitter as my sources. I have a decent amount of active follows on twitter, scheduling my tweet with my survey at a very active time would increase the chances of more coverage and therefore more responses (9pm was the best time I found). Twitter was used to retweet my post and the parallel to that for Facebook was sharing and liking. Both of these mediums acted a very a good basis for coverage and I am now currently on 43 responses (19/04/14).

The reason why I used these mediums are from personal experience and marketing. I am aiming my text as people my age and as an individual within my target audience I know what mode of publication reaches me the quickest and most efficiently.

Furthermore, I used other web apps like Blogger and Google Drive as they allowed me to compare myself to the progress of other students and view their work.

Did I use these new media technologies effectively to achieve my short film?In all forms I have used new media technology's very efficiently to create my short film. In particular in the construction stage of the text. I have to privilege to understand some more technical aspects of the software such as Premiere Pro and Photoshop. They allowed me to create very good quality pieces through constant learning and experimenting. I would argue I have not learnt Photoshop as I am constantly learning and have been for many years. An example of effective use of new media technologies on my short film would be slanted or shaky shots in Premiere Pro could be fixed using ‘Warp Stabilizer’ some shots you wouldn’t even notice the plug in was there, hence why I would argue I used these new media technologies effectively.

Overall, being so Adobe software literate allowed me to create professional looking pieces of work and little quirky pieces scattered around my blogger page, such as the image below. This was not in any form a requirement in my course, but I was so involved in my short film I had pieces like this all around my blog because the short film became part of my life as it took a significant amount of time to complete. I believe through everything I have learnt and created, I have created a very powerful and visually pleasing piece of work. I am very pleased with my work and the generous contribution from others.