Evaluation - Jack Peagam

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

Short films are to this day now seen as some of the most inventive and unconventional work within the film industry, even compared to the big feature films, and this is down to the imagination and creativity that can be shown in such a short amount of time (be it 2 or 30 minutes). 
Throughout the year we have studied many different short films and studied the conventions so that we are bale to adapt this within our own work successfully. Here are some stills of a few short films that I have studied, in which I was able to notice the conventions used and as a result I was able to develop these conventions into my own film, 'Betrayal'.

Stills from various films studied;
 Mud Boy
Back to Solitude
A View from the Bench
 The Black Hole

Stills from own film 'Betrayal'

Narrative Organisation

• In each of the films above, they all in fact adapt a different narrative structure. For example, 'Mud Boy' (stills 1, 2 & 3) and 'A View from the Bench' (stills 5 & 6) have both adapted a linear structure as all of the events have occurred in order of how they happened. However, the narrative organisation does vary in 'Back To Solitude'; it appears to start at the end and finish at the start of the appearance of events. For example, the narrative contains a relationship forming between two individuals, and the very first shot is the end in their relationship and then ends with the very first moment they met. 
• In our film 'Betrayal' we have adapted a linear but asynchronous narrative; our film was set over many days as it is the build up and anticipation towards Christmas day and therefore we placed the events in order as they would happen, for example, decorating the christmas tree was one of the first shots as this is what would usually occur within the Christmas period (still no. 2).

• Additionally we also used one flashback within our plot to link certain events together which is where the asynchronous narrative became apparent (still no.8). Therefore, as a result, we feel that 'Betrayal' has conformed to the specific conventions of real media products that fall within the narrative organisation, as it fits in with the variety of ways that short films can use narrative to show how time has passed. 

• Our plot has adapted unrestricted narrative at certain points, as when 'Santa' is first introduced, the spectator has seen a front angle of 'Santa' and therefore revealing that it's actually the father dressed up. When the daughter sees 'Santa' she can only see him from behind and is therefore convinced that this is the real Santa and not her father dressed up. This is therefore unrestricted narrative as the spectator knows more than the daughter does in the situation, and this as a result gives off enigma codes to wondering how the plot will develop and how she will react. 

Angle santa seen from daughter and spectator

Angle Santa seen for spectator

Characterisation

• In 'Mud Boy' the characters are shown to be represented as very stereotypical, and as a result in a very contrasting way. The stereotype of a male is to be dominant and we can evidently see that he is the dominant person in the relationship. As well as this he is also very aggressive, which is also another common traditional stereotype of masculinity. 

In contrast, the representations of the mother however, are positive; she is the one who is portrayed as caring for her children. Additionally, this has also been represented within the film 'A View from the Bench', in which the mother is shown to be extremely caring and loving towards her son.

• The young daughter that appears in 'Mud Boy' has been represented as very sweet and innocent, just like most young girls that age would be. I feel that our characterisation of the young daughter in 'Betrayal' conforms to this as they have been represented in the same way. For example, in 'Mud Boy' it seems as if domestic violence has occurred in which the young girl seems to be completely oblivious of, which coheres with 'Betrayal' as the young daughter also seems to have no knowledge of the fact that her father is Santa Claus, right up until the end. 
• As well as this, the daughter in our film 'Betrayal' gives off a representation of being a content and cheerful child, which are expressed throughout points in the film. For example, when she jumps out of her bed to eat from her advent in the morning. 

This shot is one of the first shots in the film and through the use of a close up and shallow depth of field the spectator is straight away able to gain acknowledgement of her being a lively character. 

• The are also other scenes that portrays her character such as when she is outside playing in the snow - which again gives off the lively and playful personality that we aimed to present.

• In 'Mud Boy' the family seems to be presented as rather traditional - the male is very dominant and aggressive towards the woman. Although this is still apparent in modern society it is becoming less common. Whereas in our film 'Betrayal' the family is presented as rather modern - the mother and father are represented with equal personality traits. The mother is presented as caring for her family in which we see through shots such as her looking out the window at the father and daughter playing in the snow. 

As well as this, this is also shown through the shots of where she starts to feel concerned by the daughter's behaviour on Christmas day, which is shown through close ups of her facial expression. 

This is also shown to be evident within 'A View from the Bench' as there are repeating shots of the mothers facial expression, showing she is looking out and caring for her son. 

Camerawork

• Camerawork is an essential element to portraying certain characters such as status and how they are aimed to be represented. For example, in 'Mud Boy' a low angle has been used when the girl is presented (still no. 2). By doing this it is putting the spectator in the perspective of a child, and so therefore helping the audience enter the mind of a child as they watch her play. As a result of this it is allowing the audience to understand how she feels throughout, and most importantly, at the end of the film. 

• Within 'Betrayal' camerawork has been used for example to show the importance of certain aspects. For example, there were various close ups of the watch as this was a key prop within the film as it helped the daughter link to dad to being Santa Claus. Stills no.5, 7 & 8 are all close ups of the watch, all having very shallow depths of field so that the spectator is known to focus on the watch and is being told that it may possibly be an important feature to focus on within the film. 

• Similar camerawork of this is also apparent within 'The Black Hole' - the film is focused on one character which the spectator should focus on. If we look at still no. 9 it is a close up of his face with a very shallow depth of field and this is showing that his facial expressions are important to focus on as their is zero dialogue. This is also apparent within 'A View from the Bench' and our film 'Betrayal'; there is very little dialogue therefore the facial expressions and body language is very important to focus on so that the spectator can get an understanding of the emotions trying to be portrayed by each character. For example we have chosen to have a close up of the young daughter (still no. 1) as one of our first shots - it is showing her happy facial expression, which as a result is portraying that she is excited for christmas, without any form of dialogue expressing this.
• We feel that we have definitely conformed to to conventions of camerawork that short films adapt as most of the most that we have used are also apparent within mostly every other short film. 

Sound

• In most of the films I have studied above there is very minimal, if at all, any dialogue. For example, in 'Back to Solitude' there is only a voiceover, which has been used to communicate the narrative. If this voiceover was not apparent the narrative subsequently may not have made sense; it is totally reliant in what the voiceover is describing and the image is being used to present what is being said. 
• In 'A View from the Bench' there is no dialogue used at all, there is only non-diegetic music and diegetic sounds used. The non-diegetic music is being used in parallel to what is happening within the film, and is helping portray the mood of which the audience to supposed to maintain. On the other hand, the diegetic sounds are being used to describe the setting the characters are in, such as the children screaming and playing which is showing the fact that they're in a park. 
• Our film 'Betrayal' has conformed to taking on these conventions, as it has very minimal dialogue throughout, with only a few lines. We have relied heavily on using non-diegetic music throughout the film to describe the atmosphere and mood that the characters are in. For example, when the child wakes up and is decorating the christmas tree (stills 1 and 2), exciting non-diegetic music is played throughout to enhance the feelings that the characters are feeling. This is in contrast to when the child is feeling deceived and a different soundtrack has been played in parallel to the daughter's feelings. 
• At one point within the film we did use a non-diegetic voiceover of the daughter, which is of her writing what she writes and instead of the spectator having to focus directly on what she is writing, the voiceover narrates what she has written. This as en effect enables the spectator to empathise with the daughter as she writes her letter to who she believes will be 'Santa', and therefore, giving the equilibrium a stronger effect further on in the plot. 

Shot of writing letter

Mise en scene

• Mise en scene was a very important aspect to making our film look realistic. For example, we were trying to portray a family setting and so therefore we used a very typical family house, so that other families watching would be able to relate to it. The clothing that we dressed each character in was also very important, for example we dressed the daughter in pink, as stereotypically this is what a daughter at that age would wear. This is conforming to the conventions used in other short films such as 'Mud Boy' where the girl has been dressed in a pink cardigan, which again, is portraying her femininity. As well as this it is also evident in 'The Black Hole' in which the protagonist has been dressed in a suit and tie in an office setting which is again, stereotypically what somebody would wear working in an office. This is highlighting the importance of having a suitable costume in relation to the setting.
• In addition to this we also used teenage actors to act as parents (which was out of our reach) so as a result we had to make sure that they dressed to suit the role accordingly, by wearing clothes that typically adults would wear. As well as this, we had to make sure that the actors were dressed in different clothes for different scenes so that the spectator can realise that it has now passed onto a different day. 

• As our film was set around Christmas we had to make sure that we had the necessary props in place for this to be represented. Some examples of this were the Christmas tree in the living room, the fairy lights dangling down, and also the christmas crackers at the meal, so that the audience were able to differentiate it from an ordinary family meal. Again, this is also evident within 'The Black Hole' where necessary props have been placed in the background to make the office seem like a credible setting.

Christmas tree - shows its set during Christmas period

Props in background - show it's set in office environment

• With the use of Mise en scene we feel that we achieved a very convincing family, and a believable setting around the Christmas period and therefore feel that we have used enough conventions of a real media product. 

Use of genre conventions

• We do not feel that our film is set upon any particular genre, as it is very hard to define what specific genre conventions it has adapted. This is also evident in the films 'A View from the Bench' and 'Black Hole' - it is very difficult to define what category the films would fall into. Whereas in the film 'Mud Boy' this film can be defined to having certain aspects of a thriller genre as there are traits of death within the film. According to Steve Neal 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' (read more detail about theory here). Therefore, this is giving proof that it is difficult to define a film as a certain genre in such a short amount of time. 

Themes and Issues

• One issue that was risen within our film was religion. Within this it was presented that the family were a traditional British family celebrating Christmas, which also showed the modern element of the film and when it was set. 
• Another issue was that our film was set over various days (the build up to Christmas), therefore within our 5 minutes we had to represent this and show that time is passing. We were able to show this by using fade transactions between certain scenes to show that time had passed or for example, that is was the next day or a few days later. Here is an example of where this technique was used: 

Between these two shots there was a fade to black to show that the time had passed from the evening to the following morning.

• Social realism was another issue that we found apparent within our film - we wanted to create a convincing as possible family during Christmas time. As well as this it was essential that we made sure that the father was dressed appropriately in a Father Christmas costume so that it was able to be convincing for the daughter to believe that is was Santa, and additionally so that the spectator could understand that the child believed this. 

Editing/post production

• In 'The Black Hole', post production was obviously a very important element within the film, as the visual effects were vital in determining what happens; they would have had to prepare and act what to do on set prior to making the effect in post production. 
• In the other films I have studied however, there are no visual effects evident. However, there is still a lot of post production work that has been done. One example on how editing has been used differently throughout is representing the passage of time. For example, 'A View from the Bench' has used fades to black and time lapsing to show that time has gone by; a few hours can be represented in a few seconds with the use of editing. 
• This editing technique is apparent within our film 'Betrayal' - it is set over a period of days (build up to Christmas day) in which we have displayed by using various fade to blacks throughout. With the use of this it is informing the spectator that another day has passed. For example, there is a fade to black when the daughter falls to sleep and the next shot is a fade from black showing the daughter wake up, which is showing that the night has passed and it is the next day. 
• It is evident that the editing pace is an element that has been used within short films. For example,  the pace is used to enhance the actions that are happening within the scene, such as in 'A View from the Bench', once the mum loses her child the editing pace quickens as suspense is building, making the spectator tense whether she's going to find her child or not. This is exactly the same within 'The Black Hole', when he is stealing money from the safe the editing pace quickens, making it tense for the spectator to find out what's going to happen to him. In 'Betrayal' it is a rather slow editing pace throughout.
• One effect that was done within the post production of our film was the flashback (still no.8) in which was a technique to signify that what is being shown was a previous occurrence. This was done by adding filters in on post production. A flashback however can be presented in multiple ways, for example in 'Back to Solitude' the whole film is presented as a flashback as its narrator talks about events that have happened in the relationship in the past. With the use of editing it has reversed the narrative so that the flashback can start from the end of the relationship as this is most likely their most vivid memory due to it happening most previously.

THE POSTER

Here are some examples of some film posters, feature-length and short: 

By looking at these posters I can see that they all contain similar conventions and lots of common traits to make them a successful and appealing poster, with each however having different styles with may accordingly fit the genre of the film.

Taking all of these conventions into account I created my own poster for our film:

Here are the conventions that I based my own poster upon:

• Title - the title of the film poster is almost the piece of text that is placed in the biggest, boldest text. This is so that this is the first thing that the audience will see, and it will give them a vague idea straight away on what the movie may be about. 
• Reviews - before the movie release, film critics are able to view the film and write a review upon their thoughts on it. Film posters usually take a quote (a line or a section) from the review that has been written, and this is a result gives the audience an insight to what the film may be like. These reviews however will always be positive as the poster is trying to sell the film and is using this quote to persuade people to watch the film. Here are a few examples from the posters above: 

The specific words used in the reviews are also able to categorise the film, for example in the review on 'Fish Tank' "Funny, moving and profound" we can recognise that there will be some humorous elements within the film and therefore we can define it as possibly being a comedy. 

As well as this, it also mentions below each review who this was quoted from, such as which publication - this is an important feature as it will help define what kind of audience would be interested in the film. For example, in the 'Brighton Rock' review it was quoted from The Daily Mail, and so this is showing that regular readers of this publication may enjoy this film. 

Some reviews however will just have a rating from 1-5, presented in stars, and will also show who gave the film that rating. Again, this is apparent on both 'Fish Tank' and 'Brighton Rock': 

Here are the reviews I created to place onto my poster based upon these conventions: 

• Main actor's names - Usually, the main actor's names are placed on the poster. This is mostly important with feature films as they will most likely be actors that the audience are aware of, thereby possibly persuading the audience to view the film. For example, in the 'Brighton Rock' poster underneath the title it has placed 'with John Hurt' and he is a very well known actor and therefore may encourage people to go see the film. Additionally, this may also help define the films genre, as the audience will relate the kind of film prior to other films that John Hurt has acted in. 

• Tagline - these are not use as often as the other conventions of a film poster. For example, the only posters above that have taglines are 'This Is England' and 'Fish Tank'. I decided that I would not place a tagline within my film poster as there was not enough dialogue within our film, or in fact the dialogue used was not important enough place onto the poster. 
• Imagine of main characters - this is a convention that is used with almost every single film poster. It will either contain the character's in a setting or place that the main character visits in the film, for example, the 'Buss44' the character has been placed in most likely a noticeable setting from the film. On the other hand, the main characters can be placed and edited onto a background such as the film poster for Juno:

Here we can see that the main characters have been edited onto a coloured background, however the striped colours of the background seem to be matching the girl's top and this could possibly be suggesting something about the narrative. 

For our poster we decided that we'd only have the main character (the daughter) in shot. You are able to see her facial expressions above receiving a present and obviously this is not a normal response for a girl that age receiving a present, and so therefore this conveys something about the narrative and gives the audience enigma codes to what the term 'Betrayal' may connote within our film. 

• Credit block - this is a legal print, usually placed further to the bottom of the poster, in very small text. This block contains the names of everyone who was involved in the process of making the film. Some examples of people who would be listed are the writers, directors, producers, editing and so on. Here are some examples from the posters above:

In my poster, I adapted this convention and placed it towards the bottom, and as well as this I also tried adapting a similar font which it seems as if most of the film posters have used. Everything has been placed in capitals and the names have been placed in a larger font compared to the words such as 'and', which are obviously less important. Here is my adaptation of the credit block on my poster:

• Acknowledgement to other films - this is usually placed below the title in which it will either mention that the film was made by the same writers, directors or producers. The aim of this is so that fans, or people who are aware of those names are more likely to watch the film as they are interested in their work. In this case, in my poster underneath the title I placed 'From the producers of 'Hack' and 'Paranoia' which were in fact, both films that our group produced in our AS year. 
• References to awards/film festival entries - the festival entries are a lot more apparent within the short film posters as the short films are usually made by amateur film-makers who are trying to get recognised within the industry, and so therefore enter it in many festivals. However both feature-films and short films do seem to have references to awards that the film has won within their poster. This is a very important element within the poster, and has the same role as the reviews, they are placed there so that the audience are able to see that the film has been successful and may be a film that they will enjoy. I decided not to put any of these onto the poster as these in fact take up quite a lot of room and I did not want the audience to be distracted from the image. 
• Logos of production companies - In my poster I placed the 'British academy of Film and Television arts' as it will make the film look more credible and professional. I chose this production company as they're British, which fits in accordingly to our film being a British film. 

Here are some analysis' I did of the 'Brighton Rock' and 'Archipelago' posters:

THE REVIEW

For our review we had to reproduce an article that reflected a similar style to the reviews in the 'Little White Lies', thereby constructing both its structure/layout, and the language used. In order to do this I looked at various different reviews from Little White Lies (click here to view the website), and by doing this I was able to gain a thorough understanding of the certain aspects it uses to develop its style.
Here are two examples of reviews taken from the Little White Lies magazine:

Here is our final review:

 

Conventions of layout:

Paragraphs:

These reviews contain around 6-8 paragraphs set out in 3 columns, with each containing a different subject matter prior to the film. The first paragraph of the review usually includes context, for example, in the 'Brighton Rock' review  above, (click here to read review online) it starts of by mentioning that this film is a re-make, as it mentions "When it comes to remakes, there is no tried-and-tested method for  guaranteeing a safe return". This is giving the reader some background information to the film, yet it isn't necessarily about the narrative of the film itself. This is why we made the decision to start our review of with some context by mentioning similar films such as 'Nativity' and 'Father Christmas' which gives the readers an idea of the context. As well as also mentioning that 'Jack Peagam gives us something different...'.

The next section of paragraphs will contain information about the actors and/or directors of the film, as well as sometimes also joining this up with explaining the narrative of the film. For example, again, in the 'Brighton Rock' review it mentions "Sam Riley looks and acts the part as Pinkie Brown, the young sociopath hell-bent on shanking his way to the top of the pile following the death of his mentor as the hands of a rival gang". Here we can see that the paragraph has started of by naming the character and describing him, which the narrative is then linked in to. Taking this into account we started of by mentioning "The young Jennifer woods, at just 6 years of age, and starring in only her second film, surprises us all in Betrayal with her precocious talent..." which we then continued onto saying "the film succeeds in representing a modern secular view on how families and children celebrate Christmas in 21st century Britain..."

The end paragraph usually ends with a summary or own opinion of the film. For example, in the 'Holly Motors' review (read this article online here) it ends with "Holy Motors could also be seen as a very sad film" - this is more of a personal viewpoint as it's saying that people can interpret the film in different ways. As well as this, the 'Brighton Rock' review ends with a personal opinion by mentioning that "it's criminal that the end product is so bland". This is therefore a reason why we decided to end our review with our own person opinion on the film "Betrayal is a delight to watch with a twist which is both clever and realistic...". 

Image:

Each review contains a screen shot from the film which is placed at the top of the review in the centre. It fils up the exact same space that the text does, length-wise. By looking at the images in the two reviews placed above I can see that they each connote certain themes within the film. For example, the 'Brighton Rock' image has used the main character holding a gun, which is connoting that there will be some sort of violence within the film. As a result of this we chose our image to be a screen grab of when the daughter finds out that her father is Father Christmas, while she expresses feelings of 'betrayal'. 

Rating columns:

Rating columns containing 'Anticipation', 'Enjoyment' and 'In Retrospect' have been placed at the end of the text at the bottom right of the review. Therefore we had to adapt this exactly as it is and fill in our own rating scores.
Here are the rating columns for 'Brighton Rocks' and 'Holy Motors':

Title/Actors/Director:

The title is placed above the written review and below the image in a big, bold font. This is so that the reader straight away notices what film is being reviewed. The actors and the director are then placed directly below this; all of these are either aligned in the centre of the page or to the left. In our review we aligned this in to middle of the page as we felt that our short, one word title looked best this way.
Here is the Brighton Rock view layout analysed:

Conventions of language:

• Hyperbolic language - this is used so that the review is able to establish a quirky and friendly style.
• Restricted code - specific lexis towards film language. Also implies that the writer know what they're talking about, as a result making the review seem credible.
• Use of adjectives - used to describe either the film, characters, or narrative.
• References to other films - this establishes the audience of the film in some aspects.

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Word of mouth - http://www.launchingfilms.tv/marketing.php?video=1&autostart=1

Marketing Plan - http://www.launchingfilms.tv/marketing.php?video=2&autostart=1

Target Audience - http://www.launchingfilms.tv/planning.php?video=2&autostart=1

Q.3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback played a vital part in the decisions made throughout all of the products within our Advanced Portfolio. We used this audience feedback to our full advantage, for example gaining feedback from our target audience, thereby creating a product that would be desirable towards them. 

It was very difficult to decide who our target audience was going to be; it couldn't be too young of a demographic due to the narrative containing the revealing truth of Father Christmas not being real. In addition to this we decided that we would set our target audience to be vary wide. Our target audience is ranged at any age from 12 up until adults in their 30s/40s.  We feel that this is a sensible decision as age 12 is not too young, and by then they would have most likely found out the reality that Santa is not true, and will therefore be able to relate with the daughter, and possibly compare it to the time of when they found out. As well as this, we felt that adults would also enjoy this film as again, they would be able to relate to this situation such as keeping the secret from their child and the father having to dress up as Santa. We also feel that both males and females would be attracted to this film. 

We gained our audience feedback through many different ways. This included Facebook, face-to-face communication, and through text messaging. 

The very first thing we gained from audience feedback is how we should end our film, in which we received simply by face to face communication. 

We were stuck between two scenarios: 

Either: 

1. The daughter finds out that her father is in fact the real Father Christmas - this will end the narrative with her feeling shocked however excited at the fact nonetheless. 

2. The daughter finds out that Father Christmas is fake, there is no such thing - this will end the narrative on a more serious note, ending it with feelings of shock and sadness within the daughter's emotions.

 

• Here we received some contrasting views from each individual we spoke to. Some people mentioned that they found that the first ending would be better due to it being more light-hearted and suitable towards children who may be watching it.
• However on the other hand, other people that we spoke to mentioned that the second ending was in fact better, and a lot more realistic, and this is something that we wanted to be apparent within our film, a socially realistic piece. Some thought that the first ending may be too cliche and this shock of the daughter finding out Father Christmas isn't real will be a lot more emotive towards the viewer. 
• All in all, we found that the majority of people seemed to find that the second choice of ending was the most effective/better ending. 
• We therefore took this upon ourselves as a group and made a decision that we would go forward and film the second ending. We felt this was a good idea as the viewers would find it to be more realistic, and that the first idea was too common within films and these are not in fact socially realistic films, in which we intended ours to be. 

After our film was produced I wanted to find out what people thought of my film and if I was able to meet the targets and aims that I set for myself to hit in reference to my film. 

Each person that I gained feedback from was from my target audience (age 12 - 40). Most of my responses were through my Facebook friends meaning that the majority of responses are from 17-18 year olds, which still however fall into my target audience. One of the responses however are from a middle aged woman around the age of 40, and so here I can therefore compare these responses and see if I set out my target audience correctly. Is it set for that wide of an audience? 

Here are some responses that I gathered from Facebook:

This response is from an 18 year old male. Here he mentions that he feels that we should have had found other ways to indicate the jumps in time rather than repeatedly using the black fades, even though he understood what was going on he felt this would add more variation to the jumps in time. As a result of this we could have used many other techniques to indicate this, for example, the technique used in 'A View from A Bench' in which they use time lapses to indicate the time moving forwards. This is something that we should have taken into consideration. Maybe we could have placed many more traditional events within our film, not just a few, and then created a time lapse throughout these to express the fact that time is moving on, yet all of these events are still occurring.

This response is from a 17 year old female. Again, she mentions a criticism on the fade transitions used; this is highlighting that this evidently became something that the viewers were unsure about and in Carla's case, it confused her to how long the period of time the film was set over. We could have overcame this in many ways. One idea is that the daughter could have had many more visits to the advent calendar, showing the numbers in which she opens through close ups with the camera shots, and therefore highlighting the number of days this film was set over. 

                           
This response is from an 18 year old male. Throughout these comments I have also noticed that spectators have commented on the music used, positively. One of the aims of our film was to connote emotions primarily through the characters and their expressions, due to the lack of dialogue used. It is therefore evident that the music used was able to enhance these feelings of emotions successfully. I can see this where Conor mentions that the music "helps to show Jennifer's excitement."

This response is from a 40 year old female. She is also contained within our target audience and evidently she also enjoyed the film thoroughly. This is proving it to be evident that we did set our target audience correctly, and it did in fact end up being a successful choice in aiming our film at such a wide audience. 

Here are some questions that I set to be answered by a few people after viewing our film:

1. Do you think the film is socially realistic?
2. Does the film represent modern ideologies?
3. Is the music appropriate?
4. Is the title appropriate? If not, why?
5. Do you have any criticisms of 'Betrayal'?

Here are some of the responses I received to these questions: 

This response is from a 17 year old male.



Here is a comment which kept becoming quite apparent within our comments - that the music should have been more Christmassy. Here it was very difficult to incorprate the happy feelings of christmas and the feelings of betrayal, however we feel that the viewers would have been more enhanced with slightly more Christmassy music throughout the film so that the theme can still be portrayed. 

Again, here our target audience has been clarified, it is showing that adults with children would most likely enjoy this film as a result of being able to relate. This was mentioned earlier within the text message, and so here I feel we were successful in meeting our target audiences enjoyment. 

Here we can see that our film has had positive feedback, with a comment from someone who may possibly be interested in short films, speaking positively about the film. 

THE POSTER

For the very first stages of creating our poster we created some drawn images in what we intended the poster to look like. We therefore draw up various sketches until we finalised a final two. 

We found it difficult as a group however, to finalise on a certain one. The first one emphasises the daughter's expression which a close up which is indeed an important element, whereas the second poster shows elements of a Chrismas theme and highlights clues of the narrative, in which the first one does not highlight neither. 

Unsure on this we therefore asked some people face to face about which poster they preferred. Here is what we recorded: 

As a result of this feedback we decided that we would take both photos and see what we preferred when these were taken. In addition to this, the feedback was taken from a wide audience, in which our film is intended to be aimed at.

This feedback did help us out substantially - we found that most people felt that the poster should contain things such as; 

• Focus on the main character and her feelings - "you can see the child's facial expression more" "it also shows the characters facial expression and body language".
• Suggestions of plot - "and this suggests that something is wrong" "suggests more about the plot". 

Here is the result of one of the photographs: 

After audience feedback however, we did not feel that this poster was appropriate as it gave away too much of the plot. 

We in fact produced two posters in the end. One poster the whole group produced together, and the other one was in fact my poster draft however we felt that this could in fact be used as our final one as it came out quite successfully. Here are both of our posters which we produced: 

Poster 1

Poster 2

To decide which poster should be our final poster, we used face to face communication and asked which one they preferred. Here are the results: 

A huge amount of 99% actually said that they preferred poster 2, and thereby this is the poster that we decided on to be our final poster. However, we do know that within short films you are able to have multiple posters for your films, so we could in fact use both. One example of this is the short film 'Fish Tank' in which it has created multiple posters for its film.

Here we can see that Sam has mentioned that this poster 1 highlights much more of the narrative but doesn't give too much away. This was exactly our aim within our poster, and so therefore this comment strengthened our choice to being certain on choosing poster 1 to be our final poster. 

Here is some feedback from Ella's mum, who is just over the age of 40. Here we can see that she feels that the poster appeals to her even over the age of 40. This is important to us as we aimed our poster to be attractive for a wide audience, and this justifies that we have done this successfully. However, after reading this comment I do feel that we needed to add in qoutes from different articles, which would be more suitable towards the film, for example 'Little White Lies'. Additionally, the comment also mentions that she gets a 'christmas feel' from the poster, which again was a very important aim for us to fulfil. 

THE REVIEW

For the review, we had to in fact adopt it to a different audience. We found out the target audience for Little White Lies was 25-35 year olds, with a minority being 18-25 year olds. The audience that are most likely to read the magazine are students and young professionals, and thereby being interested within the film industry. 

The first bit of feedback we received was on the draft of our review, we received some comments from our teacher so that we were able to adopt our review accordingly, and as a result produce a better review. 

Here are some feedback comments I gathered on Facebook after letting my friends read the review. The majority of which are aged 18-25. 

18 year old male

Here the review seems to have been very successful, as that was primarily one of our aims - it makes the reader want to see the film, as well as filling in certain clues to what the narrative contains, without giving too much away. This is something that we really tried hard on within the review - to not give too much away. The result of not giving too much away is that the reader has then become anxious and wants to find this out, and in addition to this he mentioned that he wants to find out the twist of the film. So therefore this seems to be apparent after Conor read the review. 

25 year old male

Through this piece of feedback it has proven to me that we have successfully written in the appropriate tone, which is written formally however with a colloquial manner at the same time. By this comment I'm guessing that he meant the whole review itself, and so therefore I feel that we were also successful in adopting the appropriate layout of the Little White Lies reviews. Again this is proving we have also managed to appeal to our target audience within our film - obviously if Euan enjoyed the review he would most likely want to go and watch the film. 

20 year old male

By reading this piece of feedback I can see, once again that we contained enough elements within our review about the narrative, with also connoting certain things within the narrative which will make the reader interested about the film, in which Sam mentions here that he likes that it gives him clues of the narrative. As all 3 people we showed our review have mentioned this we feel that this was a very successful aspect within our review. I do agree to his criticism in some respect, as we did try exceedingly to add in formal/intellectual words to give it that formal register, using some words that we weren't very familiar with to start with. So taking this into account the review may have been more effective if we used still kept the formal tone however cut down the use of the long, intellectual words that for example, the minority audience may not necessarily understand. 

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