Evaluation - Holly Stone

Evaluation 

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

A) The Main Task

Our short film has been influenced by a variety of films, films which have effecting our post-production editing and the storyline of our short film. To begin, I'll explain how other media conventions have effected the editing of our short film;

Short Film Influences:  

Our short film storyline is a rather unique one, therefore the influences on our film have been minimal. Many of the ideas regarding editing in the film, were parts of other films (see further down evaluation.) However, one of our main film influences, based on the context, is that of "Bend It Like Beckham." The film contains the following parts which closely relate, and influence our short film;

• The main character, Jess, is a lover of football, but her parents refuse her from playing her favorite sport, because she is a girl. 
• Jess' best friend, Jules, is wrongly stereotyped throughout the film, another lover of football, her parents think that she is a lesbian. 
• The film is based on how two individuals, although at conflict with one another over feelings for the coach of their football team, both must also over come the cultural prejudice on women's football. 
  

This relates to our film as our protagonist, Emma, is receiving cyberbullying text messages, and abuse in college, which are based on the fact that she plays sport. She is wrongly stereotyped as a Lesbian also because of the love of her sport, and our short film shows how our main character also overcomes the cultural prejudice, and continues what she enjoys.

Narrative:  

Our short film bases its narrative around the progression of the on-screen messaging. However, the main narration is omniscient for the audience to receive a clear overview on the development of the film and the life in which our protagonist faces. However, one of our scenes includes a carefully constructed 'First Person Narrative', to which is represented by a POV shot, in which our character is walking through a corridor at college - and is given glares and horrible looks to make the audience feel isolated. The isolation we were trying to represent and in some-what put on to the audience, is our way of making the audience feel the pain and humiliation/embarrassment that our protagonist faces - just by putting them in her position , from her eye-line view. 

Narrative influences include; 

Barthes - Enigma codes: 

Our short film is built largely of enigma codes. The enigma codes also lead onto one another, for example; Our protagonist is bullied for being a lesbian, therefore leading the audience into questioning the truthfulness of such claim, this enigma code then leads onto the mysterious Jesse character, to which we do not know the gender of. Cleverly, we used the specific name "Jesse" as it is quite a gender mutual name, so suggesting the possibility of this character being male or female.

Tordorov:

Equilibrium - Our protagonist is a football fan, and trains at her hobby regually, which is a normal part of her everyday life.

Disruption - The mysterious character Jesse begins messaging her.

Confrontation  - The bullying text messages she recieves, aswell as the dirty looks and confrontation of one individual at her college.

Resolution - She ignores the messages, and although feeling very isolated, she agrees to meet Jesse.

New Equilibrium - Her and Jesse meet in the ending shot, a dramatic end to the narriative.

Camera Work:

 The camera work throughout our short film consisted of an interesting variety of shots and angles. Some shots purposely used to achieve an emotional impact on the audience. For example;

Point of View (POV) - as our protagonist is being bullied by people at college, we attempted to put the audience in the shoes of our protagonist. A POV is used in order to make the audience feel isolated, and effectively apart of the film. Below is the image which shows our POV in action;

Long Shots - our choice of using many long shots, adds to the fact that the narriation of our film is omniscient. Although we change camera shots (as seen above, a POV), we chose to give the audience a complete overview on the events taking place in our short film. We use multiple long-shots, which are narrated by the on-screen messaging, below are the long-shots seen which present transitions;

Above is the long-shot we used in order to show the transitions between our protagonists costumes when she was training in football. It was an effective way to show the passing of time.

Over the Shoulder (OSS) - We used an OSS shot while our protagonist was in lesson. The shot was purposely used so the audience could see the coursework she was in fact working on. As she loves sports, shes studying higher education classes at college, so we intended the shot to represent how much she loves her hobby and how it actually influences her life.

Above is the OSS referred to in the explanation.

 

Editing:

 Our short film is mainly based around cyberbullying via Facebook and imessage. During the Planning and Research stage, I looked closely at how we could achieve a new approach to showing the continuous cyberbullying and the mysterious character to which our protagonist becomes close to. For this, I researched into how "on-screen messaging" could be used to visually act as its own narrative to the story. 

There are were a variety of films and TV programmes which displayed this idea, these include; 

The Fault in Our Stars: TFIOS included cartoonist on-screen editing to show the relationship

development between Hazel and Augustus.

Sherlock Holmes: The award-winning TV series Sherlock Holmes includes on-screen messaging in the most simplest forms. Most of the messages received were anonymous and would appear on the screen at random points of the series. 

We decided to test how we may go about using on-screen messaging, the link here will guide you to the post.
I also researched into Sherlock Holmes and created a post on how the TV Series influenced us; see here. 

Genre:

Our short film does not have a specific genre. Although it could greatly be seen as a drama, it has not been set with a specific genre. Therefore our short film is a hybrid movie. A hybrid movie is one which contains more than one potential genre. The combinations of hybrid films can be endless, below is a mind map demonstrating how a hybrid film can work.

Click the image to enlarge.

An example of a hybrid film is that of the Rocky Horror show. The rocky horror show has a basic structure to what defines it as a hybrid movie. The equation is this; drama + action = disaster. The famous musical film is based on a newly engaged couple being caught in the storm of a mad transvestite scientist, to which has created a superhuman, named Rocky Horror. The film is based entirely on science fiction, but aims to put across its main theme as transvestism. To this day, the Rocky Horror Show remains the longest-running release date in film history, starting off as merely a book, and advancing into musical and films.

Our short film contains two genres, drama and romance. 

The although not clear throughout the film, but is foreshadowed romance between our protagonist Emma and the mysterious character Jesse is shadowed by the dramatic bullying that Emma receives off her peers. The two genres, although not directly clashing, are both dictated within our short film. 

A popular example of a romantic drama movie, is that of the famous Titanic. 

This fictionalized account of an actual event which occurred over 100 years ago follows the story of its main character, Jack, who is a lower class boy who won tickets to ride the Titanic on her first buoyant out at sea. The film builds on a romantic lead, with Jack meeting an upper class lady named Rose, who he falls in love with, causing family tension. The tension causes many dramatic scenes of Jack being chased by Roses fiance and family, being arrested, beaten up and fired at. However, as the reality of what happens to the Titanic is used, the ship clashes with an iceberg, which ends the film on an emotional and dramatic death of Jack, holding onto his love Rose until the very end.


Themes:  


The main themes to which we aimed to present in our short film is the ideas of gender stereotypes and bullying. Our protagonist, as mentioned throughout the evaluation and seen in the short film, is a lover of football, to which she is bullied for as it isn't seen as a "girly" hobby to have. As already researched into and posted within this evaluation, the exact themes we have used are those seen within "Bend it Like Beckham". 

I have researched into our main theme of gender stereotypes, the blog post is linked here.

B) Ancillary Task One 

For our film poster, we researched into the basic conventions used in a film poster, below is what we found;

• Billing Block -  a legal requirement containing any such copyright information
• Justification - Usually used in posters to give a clean look, keeping images and texts in one space. 
• Awards and Ratings - Used usually to promote a film, attract an audience by using larger companies good reviews/ratings. Awards add to the attraction of the film.
• Slogan - A slogan or a "punchline" is not always used, however if it is , its used a little insight to what the film includes. 
• Release Date - Usually seen on all posters and adds to the excitement and anticipation. 
• Actors/Directors - Usually seen, especially if big directing/acting names are involved, it attracts a wider audience. However new film directors and actors also get a chance to share the spotlight and get their name out there. 
• Imagery - Again, used to advertise, attract and share a general insight into the film.

Our Film Poster

For our own short film poster, we decided to justify the billing box, actors names and the title to the center of the poster. Below is a diagram, click the image to enlarge.;

Our initial draft provided some complications regarding the image. As we are suppose to use our own image, we had to re-think how we would go about it. Instead, we decided that instead of having a large stadium image, which looks like it is used for professional football, we would use a much more basic and effectively "amateur" image. Despite our protagonists persistent training, and ambition to be professional, we not only intended to represent class by using a regular public football stadium, we also want the audience to potentially relate to how much work genuinely goes into football. As our target audience is between 16-25, many may participate in football clubs, and therefore will share the ambition and relate to how they may be very good, but yet are set in such "amateur" locations.

The high camera angle in our draft film poster will certainly influence that of our final design, and we have aimed to achieve the same "over-looking" effect. The effect may also be seen as a relation to our narrative structure, and how it is omniscient. Also, the image we intend to use may also be seen as a POV shot, again something we used within our short film in order to make the audience feel the pressure that our protagonist is under.  

Below is our final poster;

 

The image was taken in a local football ground by Harry, and as said previously, it adds an amateur feel to the photo. It also appears as a POV shot, something that our protagonist would be seeing as she trains at football. I also edited the awards onto the boards, which previously were advertisements. Because the boards are central on the poster, it was an opportunity to use them to benefit our poster, and try to catch our audiences view by including the awards.

Influences on our Poster:

The film "Believe" influences our poster design heavily. The title is similar to ours, although not the same text, it is placed within the center of the poster. This is used for the same intention as ours, in order to effectively "shout out" our film name.

Like a typical film poster, it includes a billing box and a release date, all of which placed at the bottom of the poster. This is what we chose to do also.

The background image itself is one large shot of a young boy , with his back facing the audience as he jumps in excitement at the crowd. The image is based in a football stadium, the crowd lit up with flashing lights and the sun beaming down from behind the stands. Although we are not using our protagonist in our image, the ideas of a football ground/stadium, publically based, we have taken for our own poster. Using one large image, we feel makes the poster much clearer, and again leaves the audience with an idea of what our short film is based on.


C) Ancillary Task Two

                                                      Little White Lies Review

Little White Lies is a internationally distributed magazine to which contains professional reviews, creative layouts and information regarding the film industry. It is published by a London-based media company named TCOLondon. 

Layout Conventions: 

Click the image above to enlarge. 

Language Conventions:

• Every review is usually between 400-500 words.
• The use of Formal Language & Received Pronunciation adds to how LWL is a very high-cultural product.
• Clear Paragraphing allows a bold structure to the review.

We used exactly the same structure for our own LWL review, below is the image of our  review:

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Our ancillary tasks are very well combined with that of our main product (short film). We had two main ancillary tasks this year, the poster and the LWL review. To begin, I will explain how our poster reinforces ideas and how we aimed to communicate meaning to the audience. 

Our title is a representation of the theme of our short film.  To begin, we decided to clevery name the film after the common football chant "who are ya?". The title acts as a rhetorical question, and as said previously, it may connotate what happens within the short film. The use of a question for the title could be seen as directly addressing the audience, and could be seen as us, as the film producers, asking the audience who they are. So we give them the sense of being in the "spotlight", like our protagonist unfortunatley is with her bullying. Therefore the name of our short film, and how it is presented in the center of our poster, could also represent the issue in which our character faces within our film. The font we used for our title was specifically used to appear like floodlights. This is again to represent the theme, which of course is football, but also it is a rather unique font when compared to other titles. Most film posters include a bold title, with solid colour, ours is built of small circles, which are clear and reinforces our themes clearly without sticking to the basic themes of a film poster. 

Usually films have the same typography in the poster and the film, however, we differed the fonts and style used for specific reasons. We chose to have our title appear in our film, being dribbled behind a football as our protagonist is training, which completes the themes of football which are represented throughout our short film. Using the floodlight font on the ground would of not come across clearly, and if we used it - the font wouldn't have a good explanation to why it was specifically chosen to be there. Therefore, we varied the fonts between the poster and the short film, but cleverely keeping both displaying the themes and ideas within the short film.

Above is the titling sequence in our short film. 

We also decided to be clever when including reviews on our poster. While also including star ratings, we also decided to add a effectively "cheesy pun" which also represents the themes of our short film. 

Above is an image including the review to which may appear cheesy to the audience. However, the film is based within a college enviorment, and these "amateur" and "immature" jokes would appear amusing and maybe even funny our young target audience.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Throughout the development of our short film and our advanced portfolio in general, I have always collectively gathered feedback from our target audience. These methods are through face to face feedback and using social networking in order to receive a more constructive feedback virtually. 

Target Audience - As our target audience is between 16-25 year olds, it means that most of our peers are of that age range, therefore we could gather reliable feedback. 

Before we began filming, I gathered audience feedback for initial storyboard idea. The post providing the evidence is located here. The feedback I initially received was very well constructive and critical, to which I took note on the feedback of the initial storyline and applied it to our final short film.

• One piece of feedback suggested that the whole stereotype of women playing football was not such a large issue in society anymore, therefore it maybe didnt need rectifying so much in our final short film. 
• To act upon this feedback, we decided to base the film more directly around cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is far more of a disturbance within schools and teenagers as the cyber generation in general is by far what rules our society. In order to achieve this, we used text bubbles to still show the cyberbullying text messages that she receives throughout the film. The girls still bully her and call her an "ugly lesbian" but this is general bullying as opposed to bullying because of what our protagonists hobby is

After we completed all the filming and editing, I then asked people of different ages (but between the target audience to which our film aims towards), to leave some constructive feedback. The feedback I received can not all be used to change our short film now however, but minor changes can be made (especially regarding criticisms towards our music choice). Below shows some feedback we received;  

Constructive Feedback 1: I asked a friend to give his critical opinion regarding our sound tracks and effects for our final short film. To which he responded simply, however he raised some interesting points. As seen above, some of the audio clips that we used didn't sound correct with some of the clips within our short film. Throughout our editing process, we found it hard to find a suitable sound track for each transition scene, and from the feedback we received above, it is clear that we may need to rethink some of the audio clips we use for our short film. The musical soundtrack to which we use at the end of our short film (during the scene to which our protagonist changes for her date) was complimented however, stating that it "blended" with the scene. We also received praise for the on-screen messaging that we chose to use in order to narrate our short film. With all criticisms and praise involved, I have chosen to take on board the criticism regarding our audio clips for the beginning transitions of our film, and will attempt to make adjustments.

Constructive feedback 2: Following on from the feedback of our on-screen messaging, I proceeded to ask whether the on-screen messaging  provided an easy narrative, to which, the response was critical, as seen above, Danny mentions that although the on-screen messaging acts as a narrative show the advancement in conversations and shows the cyberbullying, the bullying in general didn't appear to be reinforced enough. He suggests that there should have been a bullying scene, revealing the faces of some of the girls, something that I am unable to change at such a late stage, however if we were to re-do the project, I would most definitely include real-life bullying. 

The feedback received above was via Facebook Messenger. The constructive feedback allowed me a chance to rethink ideas on how we could potentially edit the soundtrack before the final deadline. However, the larger scale change suggestions, such as inputting a bullying scene, is in-achievable at this late stage. 

Poster Feedback

After completing our poster, I asked for feedback off those who would once again be apart of our target audience. The feedback I recieved gave me a rough idea for any improvements that I may take in the remaining time we have on our project. 

Above is a piece of feedback I recieved , to which compared my draft to our final design. The key issue I had with our draft, was not only the copyright image, but also how the image appeared to imply too much "professionalism". As our protagonist is a footballer for a local league, using the large stadium image, often seen in big football adverts, would contradict our protagonists actual profession. I was phrased on how I used the advertisement boards for the awards. As mentioned in the above questions, the boards were too central to ignore. She continues with her feedback by mentioning the filter which is used on our poster. The black and white is said to make the film look rather intense, which benefits the POV of the goal - implying the theme of our short film, however, black and white images are often seen in larger hollywood blockbusters - so once again possibly contradicting how our low budget realistically would fund the professional style of our film.

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

I have developed skills in many new areas in the construction, research and planning stages of the advanced portfolio. Many of which include the use of new programmes. During the course of developing the advance portfolio, below is a Prezi explaining the programmes I have used and where I have used them.