Lights out - Final film

Finished film poster

After testing many ideas, we finished our film poster. We use the font steel tongs to insert all of the 'film based' text onto the bottom of the poster. We feel like the poster has gained a professional look and ill stand out if we put it next to other posters. It has a dark and mysterious look to it and it keeps the audience wondering about the film.

Lights out - Radio trailer

Evaluation Question - 1

Evaluation Question 1

Throughout our film I believe we carried out the continuity and development of continuity to a good and very reasonable standard. When watching our film back there tends not to be major continuity errors, there are some errors which are very slightly noticeable and throughout our audience feedback we noticed one or two of the candidates picked up on these. One major issue that we picked up on whilst trying to film our shots was filming them on different days, as we are in college the clothes varied from day to day in what we were wearing. Most days we would have planned to bring in the correct clothes but other days when we needed to add in shots we found the difficulty of being able to film. There is one point in our film when you can notice the different clothes. This is when Jamie is walking into college the day after he goes missing from Jordan’s House. As he walks into the lift he has skinny jeans on, when he walks out of the lift he has Nike joggers on. This is not a major problem because both the jeans and the joggers have a dark sense to them, so you cannot really notice unless you are paying attention to the bottoms Jamie is wearing. This does not affect the quality of our film even though they could have been easily corrected. There was no need for us to break any continuity rules as the narrative of our film didn’t need it.

 

We chose the film genre drama to base our storyline on, and the genre, being drama, showed some very challenging aspects of filming and adding the ‘drama’ feel to the content of our 5 minute film. For example, from my experience with dramas, they tend to contain mostly adult characters, this was a cause for concern with our group as we have only teenage characters as we are all still in college. Adults can add more depth to their acting and can bring more to the scene as they have more experience to bring to the camera work and there is more to talk about which is very useful in dramas. For example the 1972 film ‘God father’ is one of the most widely known dramas of all time and this film only contained adult actors which gave the film more depth as they can act on a deeper level, compared to our film which all the characters are teenagers and no adults are seen at any time.

I feel like our film generally followed the criteria of a 'thriller drama' and other than having young actors didn't really challenge the well-known aspects of a drama film. Drama films tend to have some dark sense throughout, it can include; death, revenge, tragedy etc. I feel like our film includes a lot of these dark related themes (Our main character is being stalked and dies at the end of the film). Our film leaves a cliff hangar and leaves the audience wondering why this has happened to Jamie, and why did he have to die. The ending to our film took a lot of thought and is very fitting to the Drama side of the film industry. Throughout our film there are many situations which may appear as quite confusing to the audience, and have a sense of mysteriousness. We did this on purpose to leave points for twists and turns to easily come along in the film. We don't have much dialog throughout the film and always try to keep the stalkers face hidden which again adds more mysteriousness to the film. When Jamie is screaming and is locked away in the room at the end of the film, it adds a real sense of shock and scare to the film.

Throughout our film I believe that multiple scenes are very good at tension building, scenes where Jamie is just walking around or being followed can be amazing for tension building as anything can happen at any moment throughout those particular scenes. For example someone could jump out on Jamie or Jamie could be scared in any other way. We use rhythmic editing at the end of our film to up the pace when Jamie is trapped inside the room. Jamie believes there is a presence with him inside the room and is trying to get out, so we start to speed up the cuts and make Jamie look like he is panicking a lot more than he is. Rhythmic editing was very useful for us to exaggerate the mood of our characters. I believe the ending to our film is the best part and I am convinced this is the part of the film which will make the audience want to see more. It can add a dramatic effect to the film also.

Evaluation - Question 2

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

Ancillary texts are usually very important during the films production, using an ancillary text can help to promote the film and open up your films audience onto a wider base. Numerous ways of promoting the film through ancillary text can become very useful. During and after we had finished our treatments for our initial film, we were constantly sharing ideas of how we wanted the film to plan out. Producing an ancillary text for our production seemed pretty easy as we had already had an idea of how we wanted to portray our ideas to the audience.

After we had finished our film we started researching into different kinds of film posters, film slogans and different promotions that big blockbuster films had used but also at the same time making sure they fit into the same genre type as our film. We found some big films like Physco and Stalker. Through analyzing just one poster, I used my own creativity and ideas from older film posters to help create a professional and genre-fitting poster for our film.

I think the poster that we produced is at a really good standard, we used many ways to find the best lighting and the right effect for the type of film ours is (Thriller Drama). I like to think that the way we organized the poster will promote our film to a great extent and help the film gain a wider based audience. The ‘Stalker’ (Me – Tom Barrow) was the main focus of the poster and allowed us to add a sinister loom to the film. We had a aim in the film to never let the stalkers face be seen to add an element of mystery to it, on the poster the you can barely see the stalkers eyes and shadow is covering most of his face, we were very happy with the turn out of the final poster that we produced.

The poster is generally dark as we tried to add the sinister look, the only highlighted piece on the poster is the face of the stalker, you can slightly see the eyes of myself in the picture, which grows to become quite creepy on the audience as we found from our audience feedback. I believe the fact that the other characters from the film aren’t in the poster, is just as important as if they were. It makes you think about what’s missing and in our film it is Jamie what goes missing in the end, so this is why we felt the need to leave the other characters out of the poster.

The picture above is of our final poster. I feel that it is very well produced. Our intention was to entice the audience and I feel that my poster (the final poster) does this perfectly.

We created a radio trailer for our film, it was quite simple and easy to create as we used a voice recorder and there was nothing over complicated after recording.

Radio trailers are very similar to movie trailers; we used several audio clips from our film and placed them into sections of our radio trailer where they fit the best. They give slight hints to the storyline of the film, but not too much. Extracts such as ‘Jamie’ being shouted as he goes missing etc.

All 3 finished products that helped promote our film, I believe were done to a good and reasonable standard. All three promote our film greatly without giving away too much information and spoiling it for the audience.

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
There are many different aspects that will help the success of a film, but in reality the audience itself is what decides on the success of the film. Throughout the production and development of our film we had a very clear idea on how we wanted the feeling and emotions of our audience  to be. The word of mouth that can be transmitter between our audience and their friends and family is what we had to focus on, we had to get them to love it for them to be confident enough to talk about it as a great short film. This is where we realised the importance of acting upon the feedback we received from our audience.  

After producing our initial treatment for our film we decided that it was time to get some feedback from the desired audience and work the feedback into the original ideas to further improve  our short film.
We produced our first audience questionnaire and handed it out to a total of 35 people and as well we posted it online on the social media website (FACEBOOK). We gained a lot of positive feedback on our film, but we also received some constructive criticism which helped us with the development of our short film. We took each piece of constructive criticism and used them to further improve our film to the point where we were very satisfied with the film we had produced. We could also figure out from the questionnaires whether or not our film had a big enough target audience for us to release it to. Customisation was essential when feedback was received (For example: Shorten down shots so the film doesn't drag on and get boring). Many questions were asked after they read a short extract and a basic outline to how the film was going to be. For example 'What genre would you generally watch?' and 'Do you think our film fits the majority of your age group?' etc. 

Another use for research was filming a random 10 people, after letting them read a short extract upon there request we would sit them down in an interview manner and allow them to answer question we read out to them. We had a major technical fault with this part of our audience research as the tape that we recorded our interviews on broke and we only could save a limited amount of the interviews we did. This wasn't a major problem as we did get all the answers to the questions and wrote them down. We asked people if they could think of any other films that the story line we had created linked to and if it was sufficient enough for the genre and target audience we had chosen. Several candidates explained that they like the sense of mystery about the thriller and that it makes them want to know more about what happens to the characters throughout the duration of our 5 minute film. 

  All the information we collected from the interviews and questionnaires was used to produce our 5 minute film. Although we had a lot of footage to handle we couldn't use most of the footage as the shots proved very difficult to record so didn't work to their full potential, even though the shots didn't work we decided to produce a film out of these shots to show others, but we would never use this to publish as our final film. As many students were respectful and told us that they worked but were not necessary we decided to get rid of them all and create a short version which ended up being around 4 minutes 30 seconds long. They highlighted the very specific parts that didn't work so that we could produce a very clean and nicely cut first draft. 

We got feedback from many different people including close friends and family which helped us to obtain an outline in which we needed to follow to produce a very successful film. Facebook and YouTube were very helpful for feedback as we got comments on both of the sites telling us ways in which we could improve our short film. 

i think that the audience feedback that anyone receives can be very easy to totally discard and to my experience i think it would be a grave mistake. As the producers, you can let the role overwhelm you and think that you know best. But in fact it is critical that you listen to the audience feedback as it will dramatically improve the quality of the product you are deciding to release. 

To conclude i believe that the feedback that we gained has been vital to the success and quality of our short film, without it the film would not have been anywhere near as good as it is as its final export. Possibly more boring and very graphical if we were not told to cut the scenes out that did not suite our audience. 

Evaluation - Question 4

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

There were many ways in which technology came in very useful when researching different ideas for our film. The internet as such a limitless end of research and ideas that coup us and did help us decide on what was best for our film. The internet provided endless creativity and imaginative ideas for us to use in aid of our work. Websites such as YouTube and Vimeo, helped us watch previous short films made by other students, professionals or even by people who do it just for the hobby. As well as watching long films, to gain ideas for endings and story lines. 

A lot of media technologies came in very handy whilst planning our film, communication was key to us whilst planning as we needed to know when we were filming and where it was going to be. Mobile phones were vital as we were able to contact each other in times where maybe one of us was confused by the planning, or confused about what was about to happen. Also Facebook messenger was used when mobile phones were not accessible. 

Once all our ideas and planning was completed we decided to produce questionnaires on templates provided on the internet which sped up the process and allowed us to distribute it on such a bigger scale. The questionnaires were handed out to family and friends as well as posted on social media sites  to help get the word out about our film idea. The results from the questionnaires were plotted on Microsoft excel graphs to help us summarise the results we obtained. 

We used websites such as BBFC to allow us to research the correct certification for our short film, And iMDB for the film genre we wanted to look into. These sites were very useful when planning and researching for our film. It was very simple to use and helped us speed up the process of our film. Google is one of the biggest contributes to the aid of research for our film, it has limitless amounts of search engines where we were able to find important factors of research without any trouble at all. The locations where we would shoot our film was quite obvious to us, but Google Maps was useful to us when we needed to check the areas and plan where we would film the shots from. 

Various image editing softwares were used throughout the production of our film posters, the main software we used was Adobe Photoshop, this software was provided by the college which was easily accessible for us. The photo for our film poster was taken on a Canon 450D which was provided by the college. It was a very high quality camera and allowed us to get the right shot we wanted for our final poster. 

We used a lot of physical equipment for when we were filming the shots, equipment such as HD-1000 cameras were used as the main high definition camera. We also used the tripod which became very useful when trying to film steady, tracking or panning shots. The high definition shots were then transferred from the camera, to the Apple Mac Computer via a cable. This was then all edited to fit properly and flow correctly through Final Cut Editor, this was quick and easy to use and also provided on the college computers so this again sped up the process of our editing. 

To conclude i believe that the technology i used worked very well in aiding us to speed up and complete our film to an excellent standard. The technology didn't necessarily cause any problems for us and was very successful in the way in was needed. 

Evaluation 1

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

 When creating our film we took into consideration the conventions of continuity so that our film could go along with the chosen genre and the type of film it should be. In this consideration we looked at other similar short films and also films that had been created by other A2 students so that we could see potential weak parts of the film, that didn't fit the genre from a neutrals perspective.  

Firstly, when filming with our video camera we made sure that we maintained the 180 degree rule as this allows the audience not to become confused with the location/scenery of the shot that is taking place. There were many shots that we was going to film and use but then we realised that these shot did not maintain the 180 degree rule. We had many other techniques/shots that we made sure we considered the 180 degree line. Shots like shot-reverse shots and match on actions were thoroughly checked in order to make sure they maintained the rule as we had to move the camera numerous times in order to attain these shots. Another thing that we found in other A2 films was that the characters did not have the same clothes on in different shots even though it was meant to be in the same time period. Since we noticed this, we made sure that when the shots that were meant to be in the same time frame, the characters wore the same clothes in the same style. Although, we did notice this a couple of times during editing when I (Jamie) did not have the zip done up on my coat in which when I had done in the shot before, so by noticing this we had to re-shoot the scenes a couple of times in order to get it correct. However we did notice a fault in our film when it came to the clothes and this is shown below:

This is a point in the film when Jamie (me) is walking through college and going towards the lift. as you can see in this screenshot above you can see that i am wearing dark, skinny jeans. However, when the next shot comes on I am wearing some nike joggers and although they are different clothes it is not a major problem as you can only notice them when you focus on the change of clothes. If we had done the film again, we would of re-shot this shot again in order to make the shot look correct and with no faults.

Another aspect we found of student films was the difference in some of the sound levels in different locations. The quick change of sound, when the film went to a different location, did not work well and we made sure this wasn't the case in our film. Also, due to the nature of some of the genres of the student films, we noticed that some of the shots lasted too long and this therefore slowed the pace of the film down even though it is meant to be a fast paced genre. Since the genre of our film was a thriller, we tried to make sure that the length of the shots were short so that the film had a faster pace to it and kept the audience interested.

When coming up with the storyline for the film we decided that we wanted our film to be a drama/thriller. We decided that we should go along with the 'typical' drama genre and not try something different which would twist the conventions of the genre. So in our film we decided to have a 'victim' in which they felt like someone was stalking them and tried to face up to the stalker later on in the film. This is a natural occurrence in drama films that have victims in. By this happening it will thrill the audience, keep them interested and make them want to see more. This was the intention from the film and the drama genre is renowned for gripping audiences due to the fast nature of the films. 

During the research and construction stage of the film I had always been comparing our film to Abduction (2011) as I had researched this as a part of our film and I wanted to see how different scenes in the film/storyline relate to ours,due to it being a similar film to ours. In abduction, the main actor  Nathan (Taylor Lautner) is being stalked/followed throughout the film and then Nathan comes to terms with the stalker at the end of the film in a like 'showdown' moment. This is similar to our film as during the film, Jamie is being stalked throughout the film and finally tried to confront the stalker at the end. However, in abduction the victim survives and the stalker dies but in our film the victim dies. We contemplated many different endings to our film but we tried to leave it on a cliff hanger in order for the audience to be gripped and wondering what had happened.

In conclusion, I feel that our film provides the audience with intensity in order for them to be pleasured by watching the film. This is due to the fast nature of the ending which would grip the audience due to the drama/ thriller edge of the film and that the intensity of the ending would pleasure the audience. I feel that we achieved this at the end of the film but the start of the film lacked intensity and pace. This could be due to the nature of the storyline or due to some of the shots lacking drama or they are lasting too long but i feel this was achieved at the end of the film.

Evaluation 2

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

After our group set out the storyline for the film and the basis for it, we set out the ancillary material so that we knew how the film would attract audiences and how the storyline would convey to them. We had many ideas that was put to our group and we ended up taking bits and parts of each others ideas in order to come up with an agreed plan on how we should do the ancillary texts.

After we had finished the film and published it, we had to come up with a film poster to run alongside it and I conducted research into similar films and their film posters, so that I could come up with ideas so that we could use it in our poster. Similar films such as Abduction, gave us the idea that the main the poster should be based around one character just like in their film poster. In this poster Taylor Lautner is the main character that is shown as he plays the lead role in the film. In this role Lautner is the one who is being stalked by numerous people and the storyline is based around him.

As this is a similar film to ours we decided to use this idea and use the stalker in our film and put him as the main character and feature in our poster. This is because we wanted to use the drama/thriller aspect of our film genre and use the stalker to make the audience wonder who they are. By the lighting being dimmed in the background you cannot tell who the individual is so it would make the audience want to know who they actually are.  

 

  By the shadow covering the face of the stalker, the image gives us a dark suspicion about the character they are covered by the shadow of the hood. By doing this we do not reveal the identity of the character and this allows the audience to wonder what type of person the stalker is and what they look like. We thought that we should simplify the poster and not overload it with text or other images in order for the audience to focus on the stalker in order for them to question why he is stalking Jamie. On the whole, I think we created a simple but effective poster and the lighting on it does really add that sinister effect. To get the lighting correct and look right we spent a reasonable amount of time tweaking and changing the position of the light in order for the stalker to be covered and not be revealed too much.

Another product that we created was the radio trailer to go alongside our poster and the film. This is the radio trailer below:

  



For our radio trailer, we decided that we should include a few audio clips from the film in order to attract the audience but still not give too much away from the film. The clips that we included was Jamie saying that " I think I am being stalked" which gives the audience a hint to who is stalking Jamie. Another clip is when Jamie is shouting "help". By putting this in the audience will wonder what has happened to Jamie and what the stalker has done to Jamie and what for. This advertises our film really well as the clips provide subtle hints for the audience which will make them want to watch the film and see what really happens. Also the phrases such as "critically acclaimed" and "coming of age story" says to the audience that this is a film that they should watch and it would bring in audiences due to the words that have been said in this trailer.

Overall, I feel that the 3 different products that we have created advertise the film well and would attract our target audience as I think we have done a good job making the products. All 3 products show our creative side by making the poster, coming up with the film idea and describing the film in our radio trailer. The radio trailer and the film poster advertise the film well giving the audience a slight hint to the film but it does not give too much information away.

Evaluation 3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For any film to be judged as a success and especially for our film, audience views and feedback is the key to the success or failure of our film. In order for our film to be a success we needed to act on audience feedback whenever we received it in order to take into the audience views and considerations on how the film would attract them. Throughout the process of developing the film we as a group had decided how we wanted the audience to react from the film and the emotions they should feel whilst watching it. In addition for the audience the spread the word and talk to others about the film, it must impress them and attract them so that others become aware of the film and the target audience will increase as a result of this.

After coming up with an initial treatment we thought that as a group we should get feedback on the main idea that we had come up with and try and target our target audience for the film. Due to the internet being accessible to a large range of people we used this to our advantage by coming up with a questionnaire and then posting this on Facebook in order for  people of similar age to us (target audience) to fill out the questionnaire. This was an easy way of rounding up our target audience as Facebook provided a platform for us to reach out to people of 16-18 so we could get feedback direct from our target audience. In this questionnaire we wanted to try get more of an idea of what characteristics our target audience have and also what patterns we could find from the results given to us. Some of the questions that were featured were as follows : do you like drama/thriller based films?, which age rating films do you enjoy the best?

After gaining some feedback from this we decided to film various people that fitted our target audience so that we could receive more detailed responses and also target them with more precise questions so that our feedback that we received was of a good quality. This was also a chance to 'pitch' our idea to the audience to see if they liked the idea and if they would want to go watch it. By speaking to them face to face we were able to gain detailed responses on how they would want to improve the film. By this happening we found out that the audience would want to see how the main character got into the situation he is in and what happened to him in the final scene. This was good feedback as we wanted to see the audience response but we were hoping we could keep the cliffhanger ending to the film. By choosing a varied audience in this video questionnaire we were able to gain views from people outside our target audience in which we found that they would be interested in the film and would go and watch it. So by doing this exercise we were able to clearly see that our target audience was teenagers 15-19 but also some older people also would want to go and see the film, which would attract a wider target audience.




As well as gaining feedback from the questionnaire's and face to face interviews, throughout the process of developing the film we asked other peers in our class what they thought to the film. This allowed us to gain instant feedback on people that fitted into our target audience so this was a really easy way to gain feedback. In addition, by asking family and close friends about our film and the idea we were also allowed to gain constructive criticism on the film so we could improve it. By finally uploading our final export of our film on you tube and Facebook, we were able to receive good feedback on the film as people that gave this feedback fitted into our target audience

In conclusion, by gaining feedback regularly in the development in our film it really helped improve the faults of our film and this was vital in creating a successful short film that lasted around 4 and a half minutes. Without the feedback from various sources our film would of ended up very differently to what we started out with. Our film would of had gripping scenes at the end in which the main character is killed as we had planned to leave it on a cliffhanger for the audience.

Evaluation 4

Filming Locations

When shooting our film we used a variety of different locations throughout the film however, most of the footage was filmed around or in Barnsley College. We thought that we should use the college as the characters are all college students and it was easy to access as we are all studying there so it was easy to shoot throughout the week. Also, by filming in college, the audience would understand the storyline as they would easily understand the locations.

One location that we filmed at was directly outside the main Old Mill Lane college building. In this scene, there is a first person point of view shot with the stalker watching Jamie walking into the college building. This is the first point in the film in which the main character is seen to be stalked.

Another location that we used whilst filming was the classrooms and the corridors inside the Old Mill Lane building. We used these for the main ending to the film which sees Jamie walking out of classrooms and following the stalker into a dark classroom. This was an easy accessible location as we were allowed to shoot within the media lessons that we had together.

Another location that we used whilst filming was the house of one of the people in our group. We used this location to film Jamie pulling up to the house and then disappearing whilst inside. This is the first instance in which mystery occurs in the film, which hints to the audience something is wrong. We were able to go to the house and film this over one afternoon after we had finished college which made it easy to film the shots in daylight.



Photo for the final film poster

For the group film poster that we would use for the film we decided that we should focus on taking a single shot using a camera rather than taking a screenshot from the film which would be in a low quality. This allowed us to have a professional looking picture in which we could change the lighting when taking the shot so that we did not have to edit it in Photoshop which might have ruined the look of the picture. We wanted Tom to be sat down the light showing the outline of his hoodie but we wanted a shadow over his face so it didn't reveal his face. This added a mysterious edge to the photo but it was tricky to both focus the camera to the lighting and also the positioning of the lamp in order to get the right shadow on Tom so it covered his face. However, if we had to insert a screenshot from the film it would have been in low quality so it would not of looked professional and it would of been tough to insert the image into the poster and then make sure it suited the poster.

Evaluation Question 4

Technology and how it has helped and hindered our film and planning production.

Technology has been extremely useful throughout the creative process, but it hasn't been without faults. Starting with the internet and websites such as Google and IMDB which have made our planning process much easier in that they have helped give us examples of other genres and films that resemble ours or to help create our narrative. A specific example of how the internet how the internet has helped is that we needed learn the codes and conventions of a thriller genre, as such we search for "Codes and conventions of thrillers". Upon which we found a website that helped us to understand what it is we need to apply to our film in order to make it look like a realistic thriller. These examples consist of dark colours and faced paced editing which could be argued is what we did with our film

Codes and Conventions Of The Thriller Genre from Valvainolivi

Another way in which technology has aided our film making process is the use of professorial cameras which help make our film look realistic and show much more detail. We used a Sony 2000 to film our movie which if why when compared to last year is a much more clearer picture and goes to show that we have improved while filming's concerned. How this helped to improve creativity is that it allowed us to film to film shots and scenes from great distances while still maintaining a clear image, whereas last year we filmed with a much smaller Panasonic HD which while still useful didn't allow for as much artistic freedom and shots would sometimes become blurry or out of focus. Although the Sony 2000 has helped a great deal it would also be important to note that it wasn't without faults and created some problems while filming. With just one being the size of the camera, in that it can be hard to film shots from low angles because of it's size. This problem appeared when filming our intro during the stair climb.

Making posters on Photoshop has been very useful but it could be argued has caused more problems that any other piece of technology we have used. It has helped because it has many different tools which allow for a lot of creative freedom, examples such as filters and many different fonts. One main problem with Photoshop is that is very hard to understand how to use and is very complicated. This comes in the form of the tools such as the lasso which most of the time doesn't doesn't do as instructed. This has been a hindrance because at times because it can cause to have mistakes on posters and thus making it look unprofessional and unlike a real poster. How I feel this problem could be dealt with is they the makers of Photoshop to create a much more easier version of the software.

Apple Macs are great computers to create our film on, and they make it easier in sense because they have a much more wider range of applications on them to do much more exciting things which our video such as the ability to have many different web pages or word docs up at once without the speed of the computer slowing. What is something I have a minor problem with them is that I have always used PC's and learning how to use them has been a slow process, and this is something I have had to deal with throughout the film and blog work. An example of how Macs differ from PC's is the use of print screens, which on PC's is just a simple key. How this become a problem is that I didn't know how to print screen on a Mac for a long time, and still forget at times.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The following questions are what we asked our peers while were still in the very early  planning stages. I have documented their response and used their advise during the actual process of creating the film. I feel it is important to gather feedback because it helps to criticize your own work and helps to build on your own ideas.

• What is your name and age?
• What film genres do you tend to watch at home or the cinema?
• Do you like the film idea? (We told them the film storyline before the questionnaire)
• Would you go and watch it at the cinema?
• What would you change about the storyline if there was anything you would want to be different?
• What genre do you think it is?
• And finally would you recommend it to your friends?

The response from our feedback process were mainly positive, most people guessed that our film was a thriller due to the stalker element of our narrative. They also said they would go see our film in the cinema because it would make them jump thus making them scared of our antagonist, and in turn confirming the fear that our antagonist wasn't scary enough for a thriller. It wasn't all positive responses to our films narrative, some people said that because its an ambiguous ending and is very unclear at times, it could be too complicated and may turn some people away from the cinema.

Bellow is the video in which we ask people the questions above. With their answers we have been able to under stand what our audience want from our film thus helping us to accommodate their needs,  much like an actual film production would do. And having examined their responses we have tried to place the keep them in mind while film and during production/editing.

How we tried to convey meaning to our audience 

We have tried very during the filming of our movie to get the meaning across to the audience, but while still trying to make it ambiguous and cause the audience to think. Starting with the antagonist who we wanted to scare our audience, we did this by making him a mysterious character. Having researched into scary thriller antagonists we came to the conclusion that audiences are scared of people/ characters that thy do not understand. An due to this theory we believed our bad character should embody mysterious elements such as the hoodie he always wears to cover his face. 

Another way in which we took audiences into account while filming and planning was the setting. We knew our audience would be teenagers who are 15 and above, and because of this target audience we filmed the majority of our film in places in which they will be familiar. Houses, at college, and round the city are all places where the target audience will be comfortably, this is what makes our film a thriller because its set in places where people feel relaxed, so it takes people out of their comfort zone.

We used audience audience feedback to help create our film to the audiences liking, this is important because it shows companies take interest in their audiences. It could also be used to help benefit the movie financially, this is why we chose a thriller genre during the planning because it's a very popular genre, has a very large target audience.



How the audience reacted to our film, their thoughts and opinions, and how it could be interpreted.

We interviewed people to ask them what they thought of our film and what we could do to make it better in any way. This was during the production of our film, and as such we were able to apply some of their thoughts and ideas to the final product.

An earlier trial of our film proved, for the most part, that while it is confusing it fits the genre, Thriller. Some/most people said that our protagonist and our antagonist are very stereotypical of thriller thus making our film more realistic. Having dressed the characters in the clothes seen in the film, shows we have clear understanding of the thriller genre, and were able to accurately recreate aspects of this genre. I have chosen to reference the clothes because our audience and our characters are very similar in age, class, and mostly in gender, for this reason we have chosen clothes that would resemble that of our target audience.

Something that has become clear throughout the trail process of our film is that our narrative could be more clear and while it is purposely ambiguous it could be argued lacks the ability of a normal story. One aspect of the film audience wanted to have better knowledge of was why is our main character being followed. Although even in the finished product it still isn't clear, we took this on board because along with their advise and while researching thrillers, it has become clear that story is very important this genre. Using Enduring Love another thriller s example of how story is important to this genre, because the film is based on book which has long complicated storyline about a stalker.

Evalution Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main evaluation 2 from joeyblack214

http://www.slideshare.net/joeyblack214/how-effective-is-the-combination-of-your-main-evaluation-2

My own film poster I have create to advertise my film. Much like the other poster we have used as inspiration it can be placed in city centres, and it also represents the style of film. I wanted my poster to look verisimilitude as such I have uses elements and examples real poster and added them onto my own creation. These elements are Reviews, title, actors, a huge dark image.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Our main goal for creating our finished product was that it looked like a thriller and looked like a film that fits this genre. I order to achieve our goal we research what elements when put together create a successful verisimilitude

Because our film is a thriller as such we have tried to follow the codes and conventions of a stereotypical thriller, these consist of dramatic music, antagonist/protagonist, and relatable characters. The music we have chosen for our film is from Jamendo, a website that the music on it isn't copyrighted, meaning we are free to use any song we wish without breaking he law. The song we chose for our film is dramatic and helps to create an uncertain atmosphere which is what people expect to see/hear from a thriller genre.  This is important to making our film as realistic as possible, and fit the the codes and conventions of our chosen genre. Another aspect of our film which is purposely enhanced to mould our genre is the characters, which suppose to represent average people which are in and unusual situation. Our protagonist is a college student, thus making our target audience relate with our protagonist because they themselves will most likely be students. This is is because our film is 15 age rating, making it accessible to a lot more people than if it were an 18.

 Throughout our film we have tried to make it reflect our genre as much as possible with just a few alterations to stereotypes. Starting with lighting, we have used dim dark lighting as a subtle way of presenting pathetic fallacy eg. Our storyline is sinister, thus we have tried to make our lighting equally as dark. This is a way in which we have followed stereotypes because in other thrillers this key theme appears. A style of our our film that has differed from stereotypes is that we have only male characters, although this was more to do with lack of actors and resources.  We have not conformed to the male gaze theory of women in cinema, but instead have used characters our audience can identify with.

It could be argued our film follows the guidelines of specialists theories. The 5 minute film we have created follows the theory of Todarov, in that our film starts of fairly normal in a common environment, a college. This is what's called equilibrium. When events take a turn for the worst half way through, eg Protagonists friend disappears, then notices he is being followed is call disequilibrium. Then finally the end although ambiguous and leaves the viewer wondering what happened, still brings the movie to a resolution. These theories show why people watch films, and what they get from them, we have tried to incorporate this into our own narrative.

Films that resemble ours and that we have based ours on are other thrillers with stalker elements such as Enduring Love, and Se7en. It could be said that the darkness of Se7en is used in our film in order to pay homage to David Finchers classic. In Enduring Love they have set the stalker theme in an urban environment, much ours which is set in an around homes and college because they show realism.

Jamendo website we gathered our films music

Problems With Filming

When first starting the filming process we started off really well getting a lot of the key shots done but then we encountered a number of problems that slowed down the process. This caused some shots to be rushed in the end due to the tight deadlines we faced in order too complete the film.

Equipment

In order for us to use the filming equipment, we had to go to the media store at college in order to attain the equipment. Due to pupils in the college wanting the equipment all the time, sometimes when we wanted to film we couldn't because all the cameras and tripods had been taken out. This stalled our progress a bit at one stage as we were all ready and organised ready to shoot that day. Apart from the odd time in which we wanted to shoot key scenes this wasn't the major problem that we faced whilst shooting. In order for this too not occur on a regular basis we decided that we should book the equipment in advance in order to get priority over other pupils. Another problem that we faced was that sometimes when we hired out a tripod from the store, the legs on the tripod were stiff and hard to alter, which meant we were restricted in how high we could do some shots as the tripods were all gone out of the store at this point, so we could not go and get another one. This problem was also when we were under strain to finish the project so therefore we had to shoot the shot the best we could. 

Environment

When filming the environment was also a problem in many ways. Firstly, the weather hindered us from filming as when we were filming it was in the middle of winter, and the weather was really inconsistent and we found it hard to get a day that it was not raining,snowing or had gale force winds. We needed the weather to be the same in our shots in order for the shots to look in the same time frame. We found this hard to do and we really could only film once a week at most in order for the weather to be consistent as we had a lot of shots that were outdoor. Secondly, due to the weather also being bad as it was the middle of winter, the daylight was very limited and we were sometimes in a rush to film some shots as we knew the daylight was very limited after college hours. Thankfully, many of our shots were in or around college so we could do this in lessons where the teacher gave us chances to film during their lesson. The last problem that we faced was the busy college environment we were in whilst filming. Due to us having a few shots were we needed the lift, we had to try pick a time when college was quiet so that no one was in the lift or anyone didn't just walk past the camera and ruin the shot. This took a long time to do as there were very few times that there weren't people interfering in the shot so we had to rush when we had the opportunity.

AS and A2 film Comparison

Over the last two years studying media it is clear that I have improved greatly. This is evident through comparing our AS film to our new A2 film.

USB vs Lights Out

Starting with the technology which has changed, during AS we used the Panasonic HD camera which is primarily a hand held camera and later in A2 we used Sony 2000 which compared is a much serious piece of technology. We were allowed a lot more freedom with Panasonic camera because it could be taken anywhere unlike the Sony, but it isn't as good a quality and creates for a much poorer image.  

The next comparable area of our film I would say has improved is our ability to plan ahead. During AS I feel I din't plan enough before filming and this left us open to many different problems for example not wearing the same clothes twice thus creating a continuity error and causing us to re-shoot. I feel I have learned from my mistakes i was able to plan ahead causing much less problems while filming and in turn making the process much more smoother.















Something that went better in AS tan in A2 is the storyline/ narrative of our film. This is because during A2 we are more aware of the deadline and this causes pressure, thus in turn making us chose an idea that may not be fully formed. In AS our films trailers narrative is more well rounded and less is left ambiguous like in Lights Out.

Audience Profile Comments

Audience Profile is key to marketing a product especially one that has such a niche audience, like our thriller film, which compared to a genre such as Action and Adventure is minute.
Having based our film at a specific audience, we must first know what type of person would go see our film.

We have made our film a 15 on the age rating because although scary in some scenes it isn't visually shocking, and relays mainly on the psychological effects on the viewer. An example of where our film uses psychological effects rather than visual effects is during the finale where our protagonists captured by his stalker, thus leaving our ending ambiguous. If our of film were an 18, we might see what happens to our main character. Because our film is a 15 we are able to market it at a much larger audience.














Our audience will also be mainly males. This is because our film really only has male actors, and it could also be argued appeals to the theory of "Ideal Self". This is also because our audience will be able to empathise and relate more with our actors.

















The social class of our audience will also be similar to that our characters. This is because again the age rating is 15, and usually children of that age have some sort of disposable income or part time job. This is also due to the fact that our characters are college students, this will help with understanding aspect of audience targeting.