Evaluation.

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

First I had no idea about what my short film was going to be about. I set out by looking at a different variety of short films; comical, drama, romance ect. I then thought about what I know, and because I was studying law and this interested me, I thought about making a campaign to raise awareness in parts of the law young people didn’t know about, and this was joint enterprise. I looked at youth based campaigns and films, to see the way they connected with the audience. Most being dramas with some having a slight comical influence. I also looked at full length films such as Kidulthood and La Haine. However there are only a few films based on gang culture and none really highlight issues and dealing with them in positive ways. My short film steers away from this, although my character commit a bad crime it isn’t what they initially set out to do. My characters are in fact opposite to ones seen in previous (similar) campaigns. Most of the time the characters in youth campaigns are seen to be rude, ignorant and care only for themselves, but this does reflect all of societies youths. I therefore challenged this in my short film. My characters are not rude or ignorant, they are more loyal to family and friends, they are still in education, and they are just normal everyday teenagers.

Also decided to use a girl as one of my main characters, this isn’t normally seen in youth campaigns. Normally the main characters would be boys and other boys would be influenced to do wrong. In my campaign I did the opposite, a girl is influenced and brings a knife, whilst a boy is the one that tries to stop the fight as it gets more serious.

However I did use some typical forms and conventions for my campaign. As seen often it is a boy that does the murder in anti-knife crime and other similar campaigns, I still done this here. I could have developed it by letting a girl do the murder and having other girls or other boys play the other parts. I also stuck to a conventional script; In the very popular film Kidulthood the characters used modern London slang, and this really helped connect the film to the audience. I did the same thing here, I tried to make the script very youth based, but still allowed room for an older audience to watch it if they wanted to do so. Also often in the campaigns I watched in my research I noticed that there wasn’t many words, and when there was words the audience was more likely to listen to them. I used this in my campaign so that when the characters did speak the audience would listen to it more carefully.

I also developed  forms as and conventions into my editing. Normally in dramas and youth based productions, quick cuts and time stretching are used to show the way the teenagers live, when they feel anxiety and excitement the motion is sped up, and when their emotions are low or shocked the motion is slow, for example when the character is stabbed, everything becomes slow motion showing the slow pain, the shock and the realisation of what has happend.

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

My main primary research was from full length gang culture films and youth based campaigns/short films. I also used my own background knowledge of the law and of youths around my area, as it is similar to the one in the film. All my characters are based on real people I know in my life although the storyline is made up. This helped me paint a picture of what I wanted my film to turn out like before I even started to draw the storyboards. But even though I was using previous campaigns and my own background knowledge I knew this film would not just be aimed at me, so I gave out questionnaires before I started to really develop my idea. I did this to find support and suggestions from the audience that would actually watch it, young people. After gathering their ideas to see what would interest them, or what they felt would be more effective on other teens I began to really develop my ideas whilst trying to incorporate those from my future viewers. The whole point was to raise awareness and if I didn’t do the right research my main product would have been a failure.

My poster had to also be very effective. I kept trying to relate it to Kidulthood’s poster, the effect of dark falling onto the characters, however I added a more comic book feel to it, so it wouldn’t be jus your typical poster. I made text stand out and catch the eye, although it was simple it was straight to the point, which is what I wanted my short film to do. I wanted it to raise awareness whilst being simple fore the audience to understand, extra complications are not needed. Being short and straight to the point would highly relate to my audience who don’t want loads of extravagant storylines when watching something that relates to real life.

Also having a simple review helped my main product. Before someone had even watched my short film, if they had read my review first they would be able to see what it is about, what its main purpose is and what messages I was trying to promote through my film. I tried to keep both my main product (the film) and assisting products (poster and film review) simple; I didn’t want my audience to be bored before they even watched my production. I do think my supporting productions worked well with the main production, as they all sent out the same message, none gave off different conventions, which could have been an easy mistake.

 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Poster:

First of all I asked my audience what they thought about my film poster. I used many different ways to show my poster, I did this though a messenger on my phone, a social networking site and face to face. I had many different feed backs. Most people said that my poster was effective and that the colours did stand out. Most people agreed that the comic book affect is good for a younger generation and that editing used such as the shadow on the characters is really effective and makes it look more like a drama and for older kids than just any children’s film.

Here are some quotes of the feed back I had received or my poster:

“I like the way it has shadow falling over the characters, like they have done something bad and its going to fall on them hard, such as a negative life changing event.”

“The simple text and colouring makes it so basic but tidy. It makes you want to read what is actually on the poster. It doesn’t have loads of bright colours to draw your attention to every part, just the main part of the poster which is the image, and then you notice the bright white text and read that too”

Through this feedback I now know that it isn’t always about bright colours and fancy texts, and that simple layouts, colours and text like mine can be just as striking as bright, elaborate posters.

Film Review:

I then asked people about my review, a lot of people said the layout its self was good, a lot of people said it was neat and not all over the place, which is a problem when they sometimes reading reviews. However some people did say that it was so basic, and that the layout could have been improved with text wrapping around images and more colours, not us black and white. When I asked about the language used, most people said it was very informative and doesn’t just tell you the plot but lets the reader know the background of the production. A lot of people agreed this was nice, but did say more humour could have been used as that is what normally grabs an audience.

From this feedback I know that my colour choice could have been improved. I did want consistent colouring throughout my poster, review and film, which is why I did pick jus black and white. However adding one or two more colours may have given me better feedback. I also know that my film review writing skills need to be developed as my review was enjoyable to read, but it could have more humour to entice the audience.

Main Production (Short Film):

Finally I asked people what they thought about my short film/campaign. Nearly all of the people that watched it said they recommend that it should be shown in schools and colleges to raise awareness amongst young people. My feedback showed that my short film set out what I intended it to do, raise awareness. People said that they could relate to the characters and the storyline because it so normal but then changes into a massive life changing event so suddenly. Half of my audience said they know people who have been in the same or similar situations of at least one of the characters. People agreed that my music went well with the film, people said the quick cuts and the time stretching were effective and showed that things happen so fast and that the representation of youth today was reflected respectfully. My audience agreed that it was interesting to see a girl among the boys, getting into trouble, and girl said it was good to see what gang culture is like from a girls perspective instead of just boys like it normally is. Everyone stated that the plot was good, but a few people said more characters could have been used, or that I should have shown Daniel’s (the boy who is stabbed) life as well as the main characters. Other people, on the other hand, supported the fact there was few characters, so that the storyline was clear and it wasn’t to complex, it was to send out a message as simply as possible and that is what it did. I also asked people about the script, actors, costume and location in my film. All of the audience agreed that it did reflect society of youths in urban areas well.  The costume and characters showed that not everyone in urban areas are the same, not everyone in gangs are horrible people. My audience also said that the script was clever, because the characters didn’t speak much but when they did, the audience really wanted to hear what was being said. Although some said adults wouldn’t understand some of the things the actors said, others disagreed and said it was easy to understand for all ages as not that much street slang was used, it was kept to a minimum. Not much was said about location other than a few people saying it was in a easily recognised area and they could there fore relate to the characters, having being raised in the same surroundings.

My feedback for my film was surprisingly good. I received a lot of support saying I should show my campaign to more people to show awareness as not many people know about joint enterprise. From the feedback there may be a few minor things that could have been improved such as all the character’s lives before the event to show how it changed lives. Also some people said the script wouldn’t be understandable to an older generation, although this was not my target audience, for young people to suggest that an older audience would watch it is a positive outcome, and it could be improved to have less street slang that way I am able to show it to all ages and raise awareness not just amongst teenagers but among parents and careers as well.

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

My main source of technology was the computer; it was used throughout my research, construction and even evaluative stages. The main websites I used during my research was YouTube and Google. YouTube allowed me to watch all the short films and other relating films for my research. Google was often used to help me find information I had no idea where to start searching for, for example when I first decided I wanted to do a campaign on joint enterprise, I used Google to find out any important information I should include into my short film. Blogger was also use throughout my project as it allowed me to keep track of everything I was doing, it also allowed easy feedback from others and easy access for people and myself, without the constant need for USBs and saved data. Other parts of my research such as questionnaires didn’t use much technologies, I used Microsoft Word to write them up and then used my Sony Cyber shot camera to take pictures and upload them to Blogger.

During the construction of my production I used many different technologies. I used my digital Sony Cyber shot camera to take pictures, or target audience, actors, costume, location, ECT. When editing the images I had taken and to create my poster, I used Adobe software. I used Photoshop which was supplied on the college’s computers to do all of my photo editing. At first I didn’t know how to use Photoshop very well, I used Google to find tutorials of how to do certain effects and layer images correctly make gradient fades and other editing tips.

When doing minor editing for images I used a simpler version of Photoshop called Gimp, this was only used to take away the backgrounds of images. I also used Adobe software to edit my film. Adobe Premier is basic software for editing and creating video clips, this software was also supplied by the college. Also during the construction of my production, I used a Sony handy cam that was supplied by the college, it was very efficient and easy to use which made filming a lot more pleasant and quick.

I used my Blackberry to keep in contact with my actors, I could call, text or email them from my phone, making it very easy to get in touch with my actors when I needed them. I used various websites when creating my poster such as Fontspace, which allowed me to get different fonts to use for my poster, other websites are shown on my blog. When creating my film review I used Microsoft Publisher. I think this was one of the best programmes to use for this type of text. I was able to shift text easily, making columns and adding images. It was a simple programme to use, as I have used it before to create a similar document. When evaluating everything, the main programme I used is Microsoft word. It helps me to keep my text tidy before I post it onto my Blogger.