Interview with Anna :

Interview with Eduardo:

Director Interview:

I’m proud to announce that this project has come to a close. Thanks to everyone who was involved.

While we originally gathered critical feedback from our classmates, our next task was to put our short film to a group of different audiences and social groups in order to see what sort of positive and also negative feedback the film would receive. We asked 8 people about the short film, and I collected the results and compiled them using Excel:

Based on the results brought together, I will agree that a lot of the lighting and camera work is off in most places. More positive notions came from the use of music, as it matched very well for a lot of the scenes; additional praise was also directed towards Eduardo’s character due to his facial expressions and actions, with one person even deeming him “very disturbing and evil!”

Moving onto the poster, I asked them if my poster conveyed to their views from watching the film:

Among the feedback, people commented that the poster was indeed well presented and done brilliantly on Photoshop, the choice of images could have been better, along with making it relate to the film more as some saw the film as being a more horror-esque poster due to the design choices. However, most replied saying they wouldn’t mind seeing the product as a real film poster.

]]> http://mikemcwaffle.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/evaluation-part-iv-audience-feedback/feed/ 0 mikemcwaffle results1 chart1 The Package Final results2 chart2 http://mikemcwaffle.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/evaluation-part-iii-ancillary-texts/ http://mikemcwaffle.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/evaluation-part-iii-ancillary-texts/#comments Sun, 09 May 2010 19:38:04 +0000 mikemcwaffle http://mikemcwaffle.wordpress.com/?p=132 ]]> How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The Original Image I used for Eduardo's face in the picture.

Our short film fits the romance/thriller/horror genre, so as due, the films have the following:

• Plot involving the ‘lone girl’ stereotype
• Suspensful setting, either can be a forest, old house or mansion (yet may sometimes be posh & big)
• The antagonist, usually being a male who will stalk aforementioned girl character.
• The film often carrying a mystery of how the characters know each other, why, and eventually giving an explanation on how they meet one another.

I did looked at a previous feature-length film to help me convey the idea better. A film called Valentine, a romance/horror  released 2001, with the story involving a killer going after several different girls, with the victims believing it to be a former friend who they ridiculed several years earlier.

Poster for the movie, Valentine described as "a slasher with a twist"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA-koJi7wVU (Film Trailer)

Though the idea wasn’t to merely take too much , as the brief was to make a five minute film, I believed watching the full length feature would benefit the idea I wanted to get across.

The short film I directed does focus on the main character (Anna May) as she goes home from a long day of work, wanting to rest in the evening. We cut to later on the evening where she is watching a horror film to entertain herself. As the film on TV carries on, we’re drawn to the window shot of a shadowy figure moving across. This is another idea that carries on in this particular genre of film, as this creates a lot of suspense for the audience in turn. The TV film reaches the climax where a shocking scene occurs, startling Anna; this is accompanied by loud knocking on the door. The girl goes to investigate and opens the door to see the shadowy figure (Eduardo) in full, yet his face obscured by his hair and the shadow of the house light.

Moving on towards the basement scene, (where upon Anna is shown to be tied to a chair, and is left at the hands of her attacker) we’re given a flashback to what had provoked our male antagonist to stalk her in the first place. While this sort of scene is merely told in dialogue in most films, I decided to organise it as a flashback sequence in black and white to give the film a more classic feel, as not many short films often do this. The music I chose to accompany was a soft piano piece as it would set the mood better due to the main emphasis of the film being dark and brooding. The sequence shows the girl rejecting a boys gift when he plans to confess how much he likes her, and is then humiliated by her friends. An interesting technique I used for the beginning and ending of this sequence was to have the footage zoom in and out of the male characters eyes to convey sadness and pain; an idea which is not normally done in films of this genre, hereby breaking the standard conventions of this genre.

The ending was left with the male character leaving her the gift he had several years ago. She opened the gift to find a flower, which has all but turned to ash. This convention is normally shown in films to show the passage of time, giving the audience the sympathetic conclusion that “love never dies”. Most of the feedback I received commented that this was a surprising ending that many romance short films should use more of.

Continuing, short films show the following conventions:

• Plot involving only one or two characters
• Easy, simplistic locations
• Usually a cliffhanger or twist at the end of the film.

Our short follows the conventions due to our natural setting of a house and scene in a basement, and involvement of only two characters in it. We could have had an extra character, such as Anna’s friend; however, I don’t think it wouldn’t work due to the focus being on her most of the time. Our climax of the film does have a twist, as instead of the male character wanting to murder the lone girl, he instead leaves to grief, leaving behind for her a package. I didn’t want to simply say what was in the box, but simply keep the audience guessing until the end to see what sort of item the package had inside.

Short Film

For my short film, I conducted research into existing short films and constructed a powerpoint presentation. In my powerpoint, I created a slideshow with research, which for me was an easy task as I am familiar with Powerpoint and henceforth able to make a successful presentation. The creation of the short film was aided with the use of school video cameras, which do not have the power or force of real movie camera, yet are satisfactory for a low budget production such as ours. I was familiar with the features of how the camera works, and also used a tripod for specific shots that aren’t normally handheld and for a more professional use. Afterwards, the Mac computers were used for editing. Using iMovie HD, I was able to add, cut and paste clips into order efficently. Later, I added audio using various music, and adjusted the mix to balance out the music and dialogue. Finally adding titles and transitions to complete the film. Our distribution is being done on Youtube, yet we still have to upload it at this time of writing.

One of the slides from my research into Short Films

Creating the Film Poster

This task I found fun and easy to do. Since I am experienced in the use of Adobe Photoshop, I ended up making a successful product. In between, I used a digital camera to take still photos which would later than be blended into my poster, with various backgrounds, colour schemes and text added on top of that.

Work in Progress showing Photoshop work of the film poster

Film Review

This second product was hard to write and display. It had to be displayed in the style of Little White Lies, which was a bit tricky as the writing had to be displayed in columns. Never the less, I managed to over come this obstacle and produce a review.

Blog

Compared to using a log book in previous years, this was a new experience. I had to update this blog regualry with work and also additional notes on what I was doing. Any research I compiled with annotations. Since it was an individual task, I didn’t have to worry about a group of us working with a single log book.

Overall, the use of technology has been a key aspect in my production work this year. It has allowed me to be more creative than in previous projects. Summing up my skills developed, I have gotten a lot stronger in the use of using iMovie as I managed to work more successfully than I did before, and learned a few new tricks with audio mixing.

The review is layed out in the following manner: If the it’s a Hollywood blockbuster, it will carry for a full page or two. For independent and foreign films, they will be in a quarter or half page, and even lesser known films (Straight to DVD or limited run) will take up a small section sharing with three other films on that one page.

The review will usually have a single image atop the page, along with the film’s title, and also the director + stars of that film. The text is presented as a straight typeface against a white background. The text is sorted into several paragraphs, usually outlining a summary of the films plot, any notable points or homages in the film, and finally giving an outcome.

The overall score is divided into three catergories, whichg is marked out of five: Anticipation, Enjoyment and Retrospect. This is an odd style as most review websites and magazines will give stars (1-5/10), a single number (1-10) or a single letter grade (A-E). This system is used for a more in depth structure of the review, giving more reason for people to see the film or not.

In addition, the review may carry a link to the trailer of the film (Digital Edition only)

The magazine presents itself with a comic book style artwork, with the front cover immediatly using the the famous pop-art style originating from Andy Warhol. The cover will often focus on the specific movie that is being featured in that current issue. Films that have been featured on the front cover are:

• The Road (# 27)
• Let The Right One In (#22)
• Persepolis (#16)
• Tales from the Earthsea (#12)

Though the first two have been done in the pop-art style of Warhol, the last two film front covers remain unaltered due to them both already being animated images. Contrasting more to the comic book style of the magazine, the magazine is divided into “chapters” as if someone were reading a novel. In addition, the chapter style will often reflect the feature of the current issue. The most notable example of this is in the Tales from the Earthsea issue, where each chapter is written in the Japanese Kanji, donned with the English title underneath it, with quotes aligned along the bottem or the side of the page; this was due to the film feature being the ‘anime’ genre. The magazine is often split between feature spreads, interviews and film reviews. Between these sections are advertisements for products and also promoting other films (usually lesser known independent or foreign films).

From Issue #12, this double-page feature focuses on Anime. The reason for this is because the film feature on the front is also of the same genre. Note the bright colours and font used.

We have received our new task brief. Our short film will be shown at the upcoming film festival, and the British film magazine Little White Lies will be writing a review on it. We have to study what kind of layout and design the magazine uses and produce a short film review in the style of it.

The most recent issue of EMPIRE, celebrating it's 250th Issue.

The latest issue of Little White Lies, showcasing the movie "Kick-Ass"

The first task is to look at the UK Film Magazine market. The two leading magazines in the UK market are EMPIRE and Total Film respectively. Both of these magazines enter a more mainstream market, as they are aimed at more film-fanatics, and big movie goers who see a lot of films or own a lot. Both magazines contain a similar amount of features including interviews, reviews, previews and cover spread features on certain famous people or well-known famous films. While it seems like an after thought, both magazines now include a small section on video games and music.

As both magazines need to sell 1000′s of copies a month, they need a good amount of advertising to keep the market going. Every couple of pages will have advertisements for films, games and other products.

Then there’s Little White Lies, a more independent sort of film magazine that doesn’t get as attention as the other two, but has a unique style that attracts certain audiences to it.

I will be continuing research into Little White Lies in my next entry.

Final Outcome

Overall I am pleased with this outcome, and I have had a lot of fun making this. I can’t wait to get feedback on it all.

Stage 1

I first began with a crimson and black coloured gradient. Since my film is a thriller/romance hybrid genre, I thought using dark, brooding colours would match the mood, and also grab the attention. I added a series of patterned lines, along with a white block overlayed, as I wanted to position the title better when I add it on.

Stage 2

Moving on, I acquired a background from a tutorial I discovered on http://www.good-tutorials.com. The backgrounds were marked under the Creative Commons License, meaning it is free to use, as long as proper credit is given and no money is made off it. This background in particular is “dirty paper”, which I manipulated to look a bit like blood, and I think adds a dimension of “what’s going on here?” to the poster. The font used for the title is named “Bleeding Cowboys”, a popular font mainly used for a lot of heavy metal bands and theatre advertisements around the world. The effects that the letters give add more of a spooky look. Not only that, I think it complements the background quite well. A slight stroke and emboss was added to make the text stand out slightly more.

Stage 3

The next stage, I added the photos of the two main characters beginning to blend them in with the rest of the poster. I tried working with the textured background more, erasing some of the it around Eduardo more, as he is the antagonist, I wanted to make him look more “gothic” and darker In addition, I added a lot of brightness and contrast filters, balancing the two often to make it lighter and darker at points. The actors names were added, along with a series of stars and a critic review which I studied from other film posters to see how film critics would usually place their reviews on big blockbuster films. The bizarre looking symbol in the middle was meant to represent a broken heart, along with the “connection between the characters.

For now, that’s what I have come up with. Stay tuned for the final cut very soon.