Final Film

Final Poster and Radio Trailer (Ancillary Texts)

Jennifer Penaluna - Critical Evaluation - Q1

During the filmmaking process, we used the conventions of filming and editing in our film to ensure professionalism. In terms of filming, we made sure to keep to the 180 degree rule so that our film made viewing sense. This was especially important in the beginning scene of Jack and Emma entering the house when they walk through the living room and into the kitchen. We filmed the shots from entering the house to pouring the wine from one side of the couple so it didn’t confuse the audience.

We also used fast-paced editing and jump cuts for when Jack is buying, receiving and opening his remote. The fast-paced editing demonstrates the impossible quickness of receiving a package and makes it humorous. The jump cuts were filmed from different heights and on a 30 degree angle to make the jumps continuous. We decided to use jump cuts to show the speed and subsequent eagerness of Jack and his new life-changing package. 

 

The flower drop and give back sequence was quite difficult to do to ensure continuity and prevent from jarring and consequently looking unprofessional. The editing here was crucial and fiddly to get the consecutive shots to fit together seamlessly. Although I found it difficult to match the giving back of the flowers sequence, I think I managed to make it work and appear to run smoothly.

After coming up with the initial basis of our film, we decided that our film was a Romantic-Comedy which is evidently a sub-genre of both Romance and Comedic films. ‘Rewind’ is based around a “meet-cute” which is a humorous and/or awkward encounter between the main couple and this is what led us to follow other conventions of the Romantic-Comedy genre. We also incorporated a hybrid of Science-Fiction with Romantic-Comedy due to the technology of the remote control and making our film a different genre, which according to Steve Neale, is important for growth of genre as it attracts new audiences. Similar ideas to this include ‘the Time Traveller’s Wife’ which incorporates both Romance with Science-Fiction due to the main character’s love of his family and ability to time travel. Looking for ideas for our niche hybrid genre, I came across ’11 Minutes’ which is a short film that is also a Sci-Fi Rom-Com and this helped me to understand exactly what goes into this genre.

In accordance to Tom Ryall’s genre theory, we tried to stick to the narrative structures, themes, iconography and characters of Romantic-Comedies. Our narrative structure can be said to be typical of a Rom-Com due to the majority of the predictability of our storyline, i.e. the “meet cute” infers straight away that the couple become romantically involved, as well as that Jack will mess up on the date due to his initial awkwardness. The typical theme of love and striving for perfection is the main point of our film that everybody can relate to. Even if not in such a radical way as having a time rewinding remote, people aim for perfection – especially on an initial date. Iconography was very important to us as this is what the audience can easily identify with as being a Rom-Com; flowers, wine and a couple watching television are obvious Rom-Com traits without even knowing the plotline (pictured below). As for the characters in our film, we stuck to the very vague typicality of a main girl and a main boy being romantically involved but we wanted to subvert the gender stereotype and have the male as the awkward and unsure character, subsequently making the female the stronger and superior character throughout the film. This made the twist at the end (Emma having a remote control all along) a shock to the audience because she isn’t the strong one after all; she is just as susceptible to strive to perfection as Jack due to lack of confidence in herself, making the two equals at the end. 

As our film is mainly a Rom-Com with components of Sci-Fi intertwined, we realised that our film would have to primarily follow the conventions of a Rom-Com and the Sci-Fi part would be the innovative and different selling point. This idea follows Steve Neale’s theory of Repetition and Difference, meaning that audience pleasure was created through the predictability of the characters, iconography, themes and narrative structure and the unique selling point of incorporating Sci-Fi and technology into a Rom-Com. With this in mind, we created our poster and radio trailer with the remote control being the main point of the advert. The link between Rom-Com and Sci-fi exists already as a niche film market that manages to make big films due to the mix of traditionalism with a bit of difference. Films likes this include ‘Click’ which has a similar theme to ours in regards to the idea of a remote control for life itself (trailer below).

From the beginning, it was evident that Jack was an awkward kind of boy and so the audience would assume that he would mess up. From guessing this, the audience gains pleasure through feeling as if they have worked something out. So as not to be overly predictable and subsequently bore the audience, we manipulated the audience’s expectations right until the end where Emma has also had a remote and this hopefully left them surprised. After letting people view our film, typical out loud comments were:  ‘Oh, she has a remote too!’ which show the exclaim we were looking for and means that we were successful in terms of creating audience pleasure through both predictability and surprise.

Jennifer Penaluna - Critical Evaluation Q2

Rewind on Prezi

Jennifer Penaluna - Critical Evaluation - Q3

Jennifer Penaluna - Critical Evaluation - Q4

We initially set up a blog on Blogger of which all our media portfolio would be put on to enable us to use different types of media in one place throughout the making of the film. I was introduced to this last year and so had a years worth of experience with it at A2.

We were able to upload videos that we created on Final Cut Express onto YouTube and then embed them onto Blogger so they could be viewed directly on our blog. For this to happen, we had to create a YouTube account. We created a group account with the username ‘blankpagepro’ so that we could upload and manage our videos together.

Along with videos, we can upload photos to our blog which allows us to show our further ideas in picture format, making the blog a multi-media platform and interesting to view rather than just writing and essay structures.

Ebay helped us to be creative by allowing us to create a pretend selling page for our remote control prop in our film, making the intertextual link between the viral advert and selling page which were incorporated into the actual film.

We used the Macs for all of our media production process, which featured Celtx and Final Cut Express. We used Celtx to create the script and was very easy to use as it uses the correct format for a script. We used Final Cut Express for all of our editing throughout the filmmaking process including my Video Diary, the Viral Advert and the title sequence along with the finished film.

For the filming, we used a HD camera which I did not use last year so this was a development for my confidence in my camera skills. As I was in most of the film, I did not get chance to film much so my input to this was limited but I got to see and understand how to use the camera through observation. The sharpness of the image that this camera gave us made our film look a lot more professional than last year. For my video diary, I used the smaller handheld cameras as they were more portable but a less sharp image.

A voiceover was included in our film which meant that we had to use a Zoom recorder to record both mine and Joe’s voices. This was a new experience for all of us and we had to quickly learn how to use it. We missed a part of Joe’s speech and me and Jade had to re-record it whilst we were filming. We were also able to turn the sound level up when necessary on Final Cut Express due to one part being held further away from Joe and subsequently sounding naturally too quiet.

Final Cut Express enabled us to be creative with our film and incorporate the ‘rewind’ feature. We wanted to show the shots in reverse to fit with the theme of rewinding to make the effect of the remote more plausible. We were able to edit the shots to play backwards which was exactly what we anticipated. Some of our shots were the wrong colour due to filming on different days in different levels of natural sunlight and they weren’t continuous. We were able to edit the balance of light on Final cut, making our film look a lot better.

We also used Photoshop to create our poster in a professional looking way, which was a step up from last year. After every group member contributed a poster, we chose a favourite and used this to create in Photoshop so we knew exactly what we wanted it to look like so it was quite straightforward.

Along with other group members, I used Facebook to gain audience feedback which proved useful. Before we had fully finished the film and wanted some feedback on what was missing, I posted our film on Facebook to people directly asking for comments which we took on board, allowing our creativity to blossom further.

Jade Brammah - Critical Evaluation - Question 1

Question 1: In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the start of our project we all brainstormed our ideas and decided that we wanted to make a short film that would be easy to do and would only rely on the members of our group. We wanted to make a film that could be seen by a wider audience and therefore we focused our plot and themes around this point. We decided to look at the romantic comedy genre which is very popular since it is a hybrid of two well loved genres of film; this would help us achieve our target of a wider audience. We each looked at a related genre for our research and presented our findings on the blog. I looked at the romance genre to see how romantic leads should behave in a film such as ours (shown below) and to take inspiration from films that may be similar to ours. Others looked at comedy, drama and even romantic comedies themselves to see what the common features of these films are and how we could use them in our film; this way the audience would know what to expect and would be happy that the film is how they imagined. Romantic comedies have become so popular in recent years that the genre itself has become a cliche, relying on several plot points to bulk out the story and make the type of film apparent. However we wanted to subvert the rom-com stereotype a little by using only a couple of these elements in our film so that there are enough features of a rom-com for the audience to identify with the film and understand what it is and what we intend it to be, but also that it stands out as being different and not just like any other film of the same genre. To do this we only used certain pivotal points, such as boy meets girl, a date situation, conflict between the two and 'the look', which help ground the film and take it in the direction that we intended it to go in. However, the characters do not get their usual 'happy ending' as they do not really get on and in the end this is too much of an obstacle to overcome; this would not happen in a typical rom-com as they rely on happy endings and obstacles being overcome. Also we tied in the genre of science fiction to again make our film a little bit different, you don't usually see these two genres together and we thought that it would be interesting and would help spice up an otherwise quite mundane plot. We subverted the power between men and women in our film as usually the man seems to have the upper hand and be the strong one that has it together, but in our film it is the woman that takes on this role as the male character relies on the remote to help him and is constantly trying to please and live up to the woman's expectations. She is in control and the date could go however she wanted it to if he did not have the remote, it is suggesting that without it he probably wouldn't stand a chance and this makes him vulnerable, yet with the remote he feels invincible which is shown towards the end of the film as he starts to adopt a cockier attitude. However at the end of the film the male power stereotype is introduced as it is revealed that she had a remote all along as well which shows that she is just as vulnerable as he is; this still does not agree with the stereotype as they are now seemingly being represented as equals rather than either of them holding the power. This shows our views on the male and female power struggle that is constantly ongoing in modern day society and acts as an inoculation effect, injecting our ideas into the public's minds and possibly making them question and think about it. This is known as hypodermic theory and is used by many media manufacturers to pass on ideas and beliefs.

For our research we looked at clips from different romantic comedies to get an idea of the basic feel of the films, the setting, character style, costumes and so on. By doing this we got a better idea of how to plan our film and what elements to include. I looked at a clip from the rom-com "500 days of summer" and took inspiration from how the characters act around each other. We made the characters in our film similar to these by making them awkward around each other and as if they are never really completely comfortable in each others company. This and other borrowed points from our film, such as a rewinding remote similar to that in the film "Click," help to give our film intertextuality and hidden depth. Of course our film constantly takes inspiration from others, for example the idea of going on a date and everything going wrong, this is a common rom-com feature and has been used in many films, for example "Along Came Polly". Therefore we are taking the genre's history and twisting it so that it will be desirable to a modern day audience. We wanted to use some cliches in our film that would make it intentionally cheesy so that it would provoke more laughs from our audience, this was our intentional direction as we wanted to kind of poke fun at the romantic comedy genre rather than completely agree with it.

To get a better idea of how to make an entire film in the space of only five minutes we looked at different short films. Mine was taken from the website "Shortsbay," which was effective in helping me find a film that lasted around the same amount of time as ours as it had the option for me to search for five minute films. I chose to look at the short film, "Maybe One Day," as it focused on a male lead like our film and rather than being a romantic comedy it seemed to be a journey of discovery about oneself and a search for happiness. This is similar to our film as both of the characters are clearly constantly searching for happiness and need help to get it. In our film they find out a lot about themselves as they are forced to deal with their own failures and personalities; first choosing to fight against them but ultimately having to accept them. "Maybe One Day" uses a voice over constantly so that we get a more in depth picture of the man as we can hear his innermost thoughts, things he wouldn't say out loud, this links with our film as at the start Jack is only heard through a voice over which allows us to get to know him without actually seeing what he is like. Both the male lead in this film and our film are trying to make a change in their lives and seeking out new opportunities, but at the end of each film it becomes apparent that the next day they will probably just end up going back to their normal lives. There is a lot of sarcastic comedy used in this film which we tried to incorporate into ours as well as the use of physical comedy. Both rely quite heavily on jump cuts to progress the story without letting it become repetitive and boring which shows that we have taken inspiration in our editing techniques. Although "Maybe One Day" and our film are very different to each other I think it is apparent that we have taken inspiration from certain areas of the film to build up a believable idea of what our main character is like.

We wanted to give the audience a sense of pleasure whilst watching our film, as it is a romantic comedy we wanted to provide a release for them, where they can escape for five minutes, forget about their worries and just laugh at our film. We included several points to achieve this, such as:

• Comedic situations/cliches
• likable characters that the audience can relate to
• Situations that the audience can identify with
• Honesty in our characters, showing the audience the real them so that they don't feel cheated
• Hope, shown through the use of the remote as a safety net to let the audience know that even if things go wrong they can be fixed

However we did not want the audience to agree with the use of the remote as it symbolises the constant struggle for acceptance and approval and the desire to obtain these by any means necessary. It acts as a way for our characters to not be themselves but to hide behind a mask and a fake personality. In a way they are lying to themselves and becoming something they are not just to make a good impression on someone they are not even compatible with. The remote in a way shows our modern need for new technology and how ridiculous this is becoming as we rely more and more on gadgets that we do not really need; it promotes materialism and we do not want our audience to agree with this so we are showing that the remote does not actually help anyone, it just makes matters worse in the outcome and prolongs an uncomfortable experience. 

We edited and created our film using Final Cut Express; cutting our initial clips down and swapping them around to make an effective film that has a plot which makes sense. We used a non-linear narrative to make our film more interesting and make it seem as if we were giving the audience an insight into the origins of the story before continuing with it. We used several jump cuts to make long periods of time pass quicker so that the film would not contain any boring parts that lasted too long and would focus on the actual action of the film. We used fades to create the illusion that a passage of time had passed so that we could focus on our main character's mistakes. Voice overs are used to create the illusion that we are hearing the characters thoughts and freeze frames help the audience to focus on certain frames and audio. We featured a montage at the start of our film to condense the beginning of the characters relationship down and to keep the audiences attention, we put music over the montage and included speech so that the scenes could be explained. This music was taken from royalty free CD's and we took our sound effects from royalty free websites such as Sounjay. We kept our continuity smooth and seamless by sticking to simple filming rules such as the 180 degree rule and using effective techniques such as pans. We had to edit the lighting using Final Cut Express since the brightness was different on several scenes, we managed to do this effectively by adding filters to alter the colour and brightness. We changed the speed of the scene where the glass is dropped to make it look more dramatic and draw focus to what was happening. Lastly, to create our rewinding effect we chose the motion tab, selected speed and chose the speed at which we wanted the footage to rewind; this created an interesting effect that looks professional and works effectively with our film.

This shows that we have used and followed the 180 degree line rule. 

Jade Brammah - Critical Evaluation - Question 2

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?

Copy of Question 2 on Prezi

Jade Brammah - Critical Evaluation - Question 3

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Jade Brammah - Critical Evaluation - Question 4

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

New media technologies have played a very important role in our project this year. Firstly we have hugely relied on the internet to help us with our research. We looked at clips on Youtube for inspiration for our film and used websites such as Shortsbay, Dafont and Soundjay to create effective logos, sound effects for our film and to look at other short films that exist to help us gather information and experience that we could use in our film. We have even used the internet to create our blog which contains all our work and shows the progression we have made throughout the year and the journey we have taken in making our film and the other forms of media that promote it. Without this media tool we would not have an effective portfolio of work and wouldn't have created a film that lives up to the standards that were expected of us. Our posts contain images, videos, quotes and information that has been taken from the internet that were vital to our work. We used eBay to advertise our fake product so that we could take a screenshot of the seller's page and feature this in our film. I also used the social networking site, "Facebook," to gather feedback via comments on an upload of our film that we could take into account and use to make improvements on our film before we released a final export. This helped us to amend certain problems in our film which we may not have noticed ourselves. We had problems exporting our film from Final Cut Express as it seemed to take a substantial amount of time and after this had been achieved we again encountered problems with uploading our film to Youtube as the internet at our college was not compatible with the site.
Since we created our project on Mac computers we used a lot of programs featured on these such as Final Cut Express to edit and create our film and trailer, Garageband to create a radio trailer, Photoshop Elements to create a poster, logo and banner for our trailer, Celtx to write the script, Word to create various documents and the webcam to take pictures of props for our blog posts.

In terms of the physical technology we used, certain pieces of equipment came in handy while creating our final project.  We used a high definition camera to film the actual film and trailer footage while a handheld camera was used to record the video diary. The high definition camera gave us a better picture and a more real image. We used a zoom recorder to record the voice overs in our film and to record sound bites for our radio trailer. We had a few problems with this as often the sound came out quite crackly or muffled and we had to record the extracts again. The camera also proved to be quite a problem as it took a while to get the focus right due to the spinning ring we had to turn that was very sensitive, this meant we had problems when trying to pull focus. It was also a very bulky thing and the tripod was hard to adjust and get even so that the camera filmed a straight scene. Due to the tripod we also encountered problems filming in cramped rooms as we had to balance the camera on our shoulder and try to keep it steady whilst filming; it also wouldn't go low enough for us to film certain scenes so we again had to improvise. Using voice overs and film through using the camera and recorder helped us to create more depth in our film and a more layered effect than last year which meant that it had the potential to look more professional.


Final Cut Express was the most useful media tool we used as it helped us to create our film and trailer. For our trailer we wanted to create banners that would go across the side and bottom of the clip so that it would look like a real QVC style advert. We accomplished this by creating them on Photoshop Elements, importing them onto Final Cut and adding a scrolling text along the bottom and static text at the side. This allowed us to practice our editing skills before tackling our actual film so that we would be more experienced for it and be able to develop our skills. One big thing that featured in both our advert and film was the rewinding of certain clips, we practiced this in our trailer changing the speed to make the clip play backwards. I edited almost the entirety of our trailer which allowed me to gain substantial practice and experience in editing and how to create desired effects that we would later feature in our finished film. A problem I encountered was that not all of the footage was continuous and therefore the positioning was different, I had to alter this by using framewire to change their position to match the rest of the clips. We applied transitions to our film to help it run smoother and chose a fade in because we felt it worked best with the tone of our film. We had to adjust the brightness and colour of our film in certain places as when we looked at it parts were slightly yellow, we added filters to achieve this. Also in parts the music was too loud as it drowned out the speech, so we had to adjust the volume on the music to make it lower and make the voice overs louder.

I used Garageband and Final Cut to create our radiotrailer and extracted specific sound bites from our film to create an idea of what our film is about. I used important points from our film and used the zoom recorder to record a voice over for the beginning and end of the trailer that would introduce the film and let the audience know about its release. I edited the sound bites together to create a smooth running advert and placed the rewinding sound effect from our film in the middle. I then added the music from our film and placed it over the top of the audio to finish it off.

We took photos of our cast using a camera and put them on the Mac, we then used Photoshop to create our poster. We used the lasso tool to cut out the images of our cast and the image of a TV, we then placed the image of our female lead in the TV to create a comedic effect and placed the image of our male lead next to this. We had to re-position the images and enlarge them to make the poster flow more smoothly since we didn't feel it looked right at first, the images looked like cut outs which made it look amateur. We added our title design, logo, certificate rating, distributor, college name, website name and poster credits to make it look official. Finally we featured the names of the cast above their images in the same font to that of our title which tied in the poster nicely.

Joe Marshall - Critical Evaluation - Question 1

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

At a technical level, the use of final cut was used extensively to make sure we observed the conventions of continuity. For instance we had to make sure when he had his coat unzipped in once scene that it wasn’t zipped in the other. One problem we had was with at the end of the film when she is opening the door. We had shown her opening the door half open, but then for him walking out she was still opening it. We overcame this particular problem by using a jump cut and so missing out a few seconds, and giving an impression of a fast moving action of opening the door. The language of the film stays the same throughout, asdoes the editing, for instance using the same opening and ending title music. We also used the same transitional effects throughout the film.

Our film is a romantic comedy. The conventions of which are a basic boy meets girl, comedy is created by the interaction between each other and other people culminating in a happy ending. Our film reflects this genre, but where the girl usually holds the power, we have subverted this by giving the male role a device that in turn makes him the one that has control of every situation. But at the ending we see that they both go their own separate ways. In this way it could be seen as subverting a stereotypical romantic comedy where in our film it is not a happy ending, even if theaudience might expect there to be one. But mostly it fits a romantic comedy, maybe similar to ‘along came Polly’ or ‘there’s something about Mary’ where some of the situations are cringe worthy and make the audience uncomfortable to watch yet humorous at the same time.

Our film is a comedy, so we have an amount of slapstick and could say it is parodying serious romantic films. Instead of having a charming lead character we have a loveable bumbling fool. And instead of an exciting female counterpart, we have a seemingly uninterested and quite boring one. We have taken a classic romantic genre film and thought about how we could make it as unromantic as possible and what events/actions in a given romantic situation that could achieve that.

We are trying to provide the audience with humour. The film is a comedy and so we obviously want people to laugh at it and find it funny. The goal is to make the audience laugh. There are a few specific parts to our movie, such as the slap in the face that we hope will provide the biggest laughs. We have shown the film to other members of our media class and they have all laughed at it. Overall we are quite confident that we have achieved this. We ourselves find the film funny, and we are confident our sense of humour can transcend ourselves and to our target audience of teenagers and young adults. Overall our film is laugh out loud funny in some places, and awkward humour in others.

When starting our film we studied the genre of films. One romantic comedy I think is similar to ours is ‘Along came Polly’ starring Ben Stiller. There is a scene where he needs the bathroom and goes in, only for him to realise there is no toilet paper. Also he floods the bathroom. It is partly this kind of humour that we were trying to create. Awkward slapstick that makes the audience feels for the character in this situation.

Another example is 50 first dates. This film is similar to ours in that he can rectify any mistakes he made and do over the situation again. They are both romantic comedies and feature the same basic story tool.

In conclusion our film has both developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products.

Joe Marshall - Critical Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation 2

View more PowerPoint from joeymarshall94

Joe Marshall - Critical Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Joe Marshall - Critical Evaluation - Question 4

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

We used lots of new media technologies for our film, in this evaluation I will evaluate the different technologies used and what effect it has had on our project.

One of the foremost new media technolgies that we used particularly in research was the internet. We looked at short films and evaluated them to help us with our own film. We also used the internet for this blog, to showcase all the work we have achieved. This tool has been by far one the most useful new media technologies.

New media technologies also helped us with our audience research, for instance I took photos of different ones that filled in our questionnaire and showed the answers along side their image. I used final cut express to do this and have the two different images next t0 each other on the video.

photoshop was used to edit photos and create titles. This particularly came in use when trying to create a logo for our project. Photoshop was easy to use, and definitely helped us with our work, but we are not trained in photoshop and so could probably not use it to within its full range of capabilities.

we used celtx to write the script, it was particularly useful with how to set things out, such as spacing and size of the letters. However it took a long time to complete because although it helps write the script as it should be, you are constantly changing from text to speech to location which can get quite annoying if your trying to let the creative juices flow and are constantly having to change from one thing to the other when you just want to write. But overall celtx was incredibly useful and made our script look very professional.



We used a HD video recorder for filming our short film. It was relatively simple to use and when using a tripod as well made sure our film had a professional edge, as opposed to a shaky low quality camera. Using this camera all the time though had its difficulties, such as when we were shooting on location we had to carry it around in a bag, and sometimes when we only had a confined space to film in and the camera was too big and bulky. Thankfully this only happened on one occasion. This camera was instrumental in the construction of our film.



We used a zoom recorder to record a voiceover for or film. I myself had never used one of these before so learning how to use it was interesting. For our film we have an internal monologue from some of the characters and a voice over during some of the action as well, using this zoom recorder we were able to make sure our voices were crisp and clear for our film. It was relatively simple to use and helped us with our final product.

We used final cut express to edit our film. Final cut express helped with constructing our clips and putting it into a film. It is by far one of the best software for film making because it allowed the user the freedom to edit and create their film. One challenge to using this software was that in our film we needed clips to be in reverse. Thankfully final cut had an edit that could do that, it could also fix problems such as colour tone. One of our clips was more blue and the other was brighter and so they didn't go together but final cut made them blend in. One difficulty in using final cut is that we only knew the basics of cutting and editing. When we had to do something more complex we would have to ask for help from someone more specialised in it. Overall final cut has been instrumental in creating our film and also fixing it when we have mistakes.

Overall new media technologies were very important in our research, planning, construction and evaluation. They allowed us to be thorough and access things we wouldn't be able to have without them. Using new media technologies also helped us build experience, which would help us if we were to carry on using them after college. In conclusion new media technologies give us the freedom to research almost anything, plan what we are going to do down to the last detail and construct something worthwhile.

Amy Bissell - Critical Evaluation - Question 1

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We had planned from our initial brief to make our film fit the romantic comedy genre.  We each took part in researching into elements of genre, such as romance, drama, romantic comedy and comedy itself to give ourselves an in-depth knowledge of what an audience expects to find in each. We found that romantic comedy was quite a typical genre and has a familiar structure, (See Below).  Although elements of our film fit to this structure, (boy meets girl, conflict, obstacles) it also contradicts the genre, as there is no real threat to the couples’ relationship and there appears to be no happily ever after at the end. Romantic comedy is not the only genre our film fits. Theories like Steve Neale’s believe that genres are interlinked as hybrids. Although not totally apparent, our film is a hybrid of romantic comedy and science fiction (a.k.a. Sci-Fi) with the frequent use of possible future technologies.

To plan, we first brainstormed as a group to choose collectively basic plot and structure of our film. We took our research into genre further by watching clips of romantic comedies to study the locations, characters, costumes and overall editing. I choose to study a clip from “50 First Dates” (See Below). Influence from films like “50 First Dates” and “Click” gives our film intertextuality. We also researched into short films on websites such as ShortsBay to see what makes a short film.

We edited our film on Final Cut Express. Our film features a large number and variety of jump cuts to make longer periods of time in our film pass by quicker as we only have a restricted 5 minutes. Our film also has a non-linear narrative, starting in the middle of the story, cutting back to the start of their relationship, and finishing with the end. To make the transitions more fluent, we added video transitions and some freeze-frames with voiceovers. We also used a combination of music and voiceover to create a montage to make the passage of time quicker and more fluent. We also used Final Cut to alter the speed of our film in the “rewinding” scenes, we simply selected the footage we wanted to play backwards, went to the “Motion” tab, select “Speed”, changed the duration to the desired speed, usually around 2 seconds, and then select “Reverse”. To make it more realistic, we also added sound effects from royalty free websites like SoundJay, of a cassette tape rewinding.  We maintain continuity while editing by keeping to the 180-degree rule in our shot reverse shot scenes, and also edited the lighting by adding filters to alter colour and brightness. These filters made the transition between shots seamless even though they were filmed on different days and at different times.

Our film aims to make a statement about todays world, in terms of technology and relationships. First with the remote and its effects on the universe. When does technology go too far? When is enough, enough? We hope our audience will question whether they would like a remote like the prop themselves to remove mistakes or would they rather be liked in a relationship regardless of imperfections. The remote is used as more than a prop, but as a symbol for todays’ society and the image of perfection we are obligated to fit. Buscombe theory of inner and outer forms of genre relates to our films sci-fi elements. Although the remote serves as an outer form, a prop as a visual convention for the underlying sci-fi element of our film, it also serves as an inner form to express the moral of the story. Hopefully, after seeing the disappointment of the characters after the effects of the remote, the audience will come to the conclusion that perhaps the remote is not the answer. Our film also challenges the idea that men hold more power over women, particularly in film.  Although our lead character is male, he is portrayed as a vulnerable character, at the mercy of the female, and although he is control of the remote, she has control over the date. It challenges the conventions of film. But in the end, both characters are revealed as vulnerable, as she has a remote as well. This relates to Rick Altman’s theory of semantic, syntactic and pragmatics as it features elements of all three:

-  Semantics – visual conventions of the genre. (Boy meets girl, date situation of having dinner, flowers.)

- Syntactics – expectations/ideals of the narrative. (Power struggles of relationships, sexual under theme, the search for love)

 - Pragmatics – influence of audience/institutes. (Power struggle between men and women where the male has the upper hand – however in the end we have equilibrium.)

The audience should receive forms of pleasure through watching our film. Richard Dyer’s theory of “Utopian Sensibilities” believes audience seek pleasure for an element they lack in their own life through films. Our film provides:

·      Intensity in its characters alternating moods for those who have a ‘boring’ or ‘mundane life’. 

·      Transparency as our leading male has clear emotions through his facial expressions, dialogue and inner monologue for those tired of ‘lies and manipulation’.

·      Most importantly, community for those who are ‘lonely’, as even though the characters are conflicted, they are both presented as hopeless and in a way, meant for each other, which should give our audience a subtle hope.

The majority of the short films I know have an experimental or educational feel, often used as a form of expression or to give a moral. Some are even used for advertising, such as the short film I analysed called “The Star”, which is an advertisement for Mercedes. “The Star” was quite different for a short film, as it is filled with high profile celebrities, like Madonna and Clive Owen, whereas usually short films have unknown actors due to their budget. It had a male V.s. female dynamic, similar to ours. Ours also has a male/female V.s technology, as does “the Star” where Madonna is at the mercy of the Mercedes and her Driver. It has elements of physical comedy very similar to ours, for example when the Star spills coffee on her trousers, which is mistaken for urine. They use some similar editing techniques to our film, for example they alter the speed of some footage and use overdramatic music for comedic effect.

Amy Bissell - Critical Evaluation - Question 2

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?

A2 Media Studies - on Prezi

Amy Bissell - Critical Evaluation - Question 3

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Amy Bissell - Critical Evaluation - Question 4

Q4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

A: Technology has been the most important feature of my product this year. From the initial research to the final edit of my five-minute film, new technology has played a vital role in my work. Firstly, I have used the Internet, using a Blog to exhibit my work and research in a creative format. My blog had multi-media, featuring text, external link, a collection of borrowed and original photos and even videos, both from YouTube and of my own creation. The Internet was vital for my research, in particular to find examples viral advertising, where I found many examples such as images and interactive website.  The Internet also provided opportunities from audience research, as I used the social network site Facebook to gain information through a digital questionnaire via Chat. It enabled me to get a broad audience feedback.  I did however encounter problems when uploading my own video’s to YouTube as our college provides only a restricted bandwidth for uploading, but after consulting my tutor the problem was soon fixed. I also used a variety of software on Mac computers throughout my project. I used Celtx to write the script, Word to create a shooting script, Photoshop Elements to create a banner and Production Company Logo, and ArtTextLite and Paint to create our title. We also used websites like eBay, as we created a fake page advertising the prop remote used in film. Photoshop Elements allowed me to use a range of features to edit different layers, much like Final Cut but for images. I could create a background and build onto it with different layers, like imported images, text layers and then clip art. For sound editing in our film, we used a combination of Garage Band and Final Cut together to create an interesting effect on the sound effect of rewind me used to make it sound echoed, and to compile the sounds effects, music and soundbites effectively.

New technology was a big part of the production stage of my film with the equipment used. We filmed using a high definition camera, which enabled us to create a more crisp image.  I also gained experience using a Zoom Recorder to create original audio for a voiceover. These details helped to create a more technical and advance final product than in my Foundation year. I was however forced to change elements of my film due to restrictions caused by technology, in particular with focus. Our camera uses a spinning ring to focus, rather than a linear ring, which made it very difficult to focus on objects very close to the camera and also when pull focusing. I was forced to remove a pull focus shot from our film and replace it with a simple medium shot of two characters instead. I also found that the camera and tripod restricted me from filming in a confided area, in particular when I was filming in a bathroom that had little space to fit the camera plus various mirrors. To overcome this, I included two hand held shots rather than using the tripod.

To edit the film, we used Mac computers and various software such as Final Cut Express to edit footage and Photoshop Elements for poster design. I also used other software such as using Celtx to create a formatted script. To show creativity, we created our viral advertisement idea to be featured briefly in our film itself. We used Final Cut Express to edit our advert together. I created images for the advert on Photoshop elements which was imported onto Final Cut, where we also added moving text and copyright free sounds from a website. It combined all our new skills together and allowed us to experiment with the features of Final Cut Express before editing our final product, such as altering speed and reversing the images to play backward. In particular, I did the majority of editing in the group on our final product, which involved trimming shots, importing voiceover audio and copyright free sound effects, applying various transition and reversing visuals and audio. I was also responsible for altering the colour and brightness of several shots and also adjusting audio levels. Here is the step by step process I had to complete for each shot to edit the colour and overall brightness of the shot, (Click to Enlarge). First I selected the shot and clicked the filters tab. I then dragged in a Brightness and Contrast filter and adjusted the levels of each. Then I added a colour filter and added more white and blue to countert the overly-yellow image. You see the end result on the final photo.

I was also had to alter the audio levels of some shots, for example when adding our voiceover recordings. Here, I altered the Level from 0db to -5db and the Pan from 0 to -1, making the recording quieter.

Some shots were also adjusted using the framewire feature to edit their composition on screen. Below is an example, while I was creating the title sequence which involved editing the wire frame of nine video clips on separate layers. When I decided how big the first would be, I simply copied the number in the "Scale" box on the "Motion" tab so they would all be the same dimension. 

When creating the radio trailer on Final Cut Express and also used Garage Band to edit sound. We selecting a scene which gave a good representation of the plot and themes of our film, selecting the audio to make a sequence (this was now a sound bite), then we added a recorded voiceover which said our tagline, then adding a final layer of music from our film to give the advert synergy to our film. Final Cut made the process very easy as if was easy to cut each audio on its own individual layer. We could also edit the level of volume on each audio to make the voiceover and sound bite over power the music volume. We wanted to add a distorted and echo sounding rewind sound effect, and use Garage Band to alter the sound, then adding it back to Final Cut to make the final product. 

Our poster design was created on photoshop, using original photos and images that were royalty free. We created a  friendly colour scheme to make the advert inviting to show the air of romance in our film, but also had a comedy theme with the context of the actors and what they were doing. We able to edit a photo of our actor into the screen of a television, appearing trapped by using the Photoshop "lasso" tool to remove the background and a "blur" tool to blend them in, giving the final piece a professional feel.