Evaluation - Mia Foden

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

Short films have fairly distinctive features.

Pointing out the obvious - short films are short. They can from 2 minutes long to 30 minutes long. They are usually 'quirky' and often have a twist - like ours. In order to achieve this genre we needed to look at other short films and how they are successful in maintaining the spectators attention for the short amount of time. Short films also often revolve around one simple idea throughout the film. This is important as this avoids confusing the spectator with a complicated pot which cannot be unravelled within the limited amount of time. We also discovered that many are not under a specific genre like: Comedy, Romance, Horror, Thriller etc. This may be due to the fact that there is not enough time to make it clear to the spectator what the genre is. Betrayal is difficult to slot under a genre as - we would like to say it is a family film, but given the fact that the young girl discovers the fantasy of 'Father Christmas', it wouldn't make sense for children up to 10 years of age to watch it as it may ruin their belief.

One film which i have analysed is Skirt. Like our film, this does not seem to fit to a certain genre. I initially found this on http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/film/3545/skirt . It is, however, also available on Youtube.

Skirt

Narrative organisation (the order of story events):

• Skirt has a linear narrative structure with closure like our film Betrayal. Not all short films adopt this narrative organisation but many do which is often due to the timing of the film being limited. - If a film were to have a complex narrative structure, but was only 5 minutes long, this could be very confusing for a spectator and the spectator may not understand the plot.

Characterisation:

• Characters are constructed media representations of reality. In Skirt neither of the characters are presented as particularly stereotypical. This implies that Amanda Boyle, the director, wanted to represent modern ideologies around femininity and masculinity. Frame 2 shows us the man in a white T-shirt and the young woman in a colourful quirky outfit. 

• Her individuality is also expressed in frame 3 where we can see her hair is dyed both purple and yellow. This represents a modern woman who isn't afraid to stand out and is not just wearing a pretty red dress or a skirt. She is also wearing little make-up which again represents a modern reality as she does not feel the need to make an exceptional effort in order to present herself as particularly feminine.
• The limited use of dialogue not only emphasizes the fact that this is a short film, but it also tells us a little about their character. Shyness is clearly something which they both have in common which leads to the two characters showing odd gestures of affection towards one another.
• Skirt has little in common with Betrayal in terms of characterisation but both of the films involve only a few characters which again reinforces the fact that the two are under the genre of short films.

Mise en scene:

• Unlike Betrayal, the lighting is fairly dull with a limited colour pallet. This is clear in all of the frames above where there is mainly grey, yellow, white, and brown. This in not like our film as we wanted to create a Christmassy atmosphere and feel to the film therefore aimed to keep the shots colourful. In this low level long shot we can observe the use of a limited colour pallet

• The setting is also different as they are sharing a flat, which is apparent in frame 3 - a cheap looking flat. This is realistic socially as both of the main characters look young - especially the young woman which we can see the top of a short dress in frame 6 which, we may assume as spectators that she has come back from a day at university therefore is a student - implying that she does not have a lot of money.
• One similarity between the two films in terms of mise en scene is that the location does not vary much. In Skirt, we either see the characters inside the flat or outside of the flat. This is the same as in our film. By keeping the locations simple it means that the plot of the story is the focus of the film rather than the variety of exotic locations which the characters are placed in.

Use of genre conventions:

• There are definitely elements of a romance in Skirt as it revolves around the two characters who make flirtatious and odd gestures of romance towards each other. This is what Rick Atlman would call a 'syntactic code'. In this over-the-shoulder medium shot we can see that this man has put the young woman's clothes and possessions in a neat pile for her - this could be seen as a syntactic code. 

• Other than these gestures, the genre doesn't seem to be particularly clear due to the fact that the film is only 02:40 minutes long. This is obviously an aspect of being a short film. This again is similar to our film as a genre is difficult to establish being only 5 minutes long.

Editing/post production:

• Like Betrayal, Skirt has been edited into a montage of different shots for different days to represent the change in time without making the film too long.
• Simple cuts have been used which is different to our film as we have often used fade transitions in order to represent the change in time.
• Another difference is the usage of non-diegetic music. We decided to use non-diegetic music in order for the story to flow and for the Christmas theme to be emphasized. Skirt, however, used only diegetic sound which I think is more effect for this film as it emphasises the awkwardness between the two characters which is an important aspect in the film.

Happy Holidays

Another film which I have decided to analyse is Happy Holidays. I found this on http://vimeo.com/17985665 where you can watch the video.

Unlike our film Happy Holidays is a comedy. Essentially - it is about Christmas presents coming to life and ruining a family of 3's Christmas.

Narrative organisation:

• The narrative is linear - like ours. This film is far shorter than ours (01:37 minutes), however, which means there is definitely no time for a complex narrative structure, therefore this structure is sensible.

Charaterisation:

• The charactersation in this film is quite similar to ours in some respects as the Mum and Dad are both casually dressed and are looking upon their child with care and pride. This is evident in their facial expressions in frame 6.
• The young boy is wearing glasses and pajamas. Close up shots of his facial expressions are mainly what portrays his character through 'goofy' grins and over excitement as he carelessly pulls apart the crying and screaming presents.

• Similarly, they have chosen a child of around the same ages as Jennifer in our film. This, I think, is positive as it ensures that other film producers would agree that this is the age in which children find Christmas the most enjoyable. This therefore emphasizes Jennifer's disappointment as she finds out that Santa is not real. 

Mise en scene:

• The lighting is very high key with a colour pallet of mainly green, red and golden colours - we can see this in frame 1. This is where our film is most similar as both of the films are set around Christmas.

• Props such as the Christmas tree, fairy lights, and presents immediately tell us as spectators that this film is based on Christmas. We also involved these within our film. We can also observe through this long shot, of their highly decorated living room, the milk and cookies half eaten. - We also used milk and mince pies in order to reinforce the Christmas feel.

• The use of the very high key lighting and Christmas related props emphasizes the excitement of the child and the parents. The juxtaposition with this excitement and the sudden anger of the presents creates a dramatic effect which is comical for spectators. We also decided to use Jennifer's excitement to emphasize the fact that Christmas has been ruined!

Use of genre conventions:

• In comedies we often see use of 'over the top' acting. The fact that the family all look so ridiculously happy is comical as they look almost too happy to be enjoying Christmas that much! The young boy is presented in a slightly 'evil' light as he rips apart the crying presents. Therefore, when the family are being attacked by the presents it is funny!

• The use of animation is also comical as we are aware as spectators that this scenario wouldn't happen therefore the ridicule of it all is humorous! This is often used in comedies therefore spectators are able to make connections and understand that this film is not supposed to be serious.

Editing/post production & sound:

• The non-diegetic music all seems to be part of the comical effect as it is very upbeat Christmassy music throughout the entire film - even when the parents and child are being attacked by the presents.
• A slow motion effect has been used for the very beginning few shots which I think has been implemented in order to set up the upcoming events. The pace of the shots becomes quicker and quicker throughout the film which keeps the film varied and entertaining to watch.

Our film:

Betrayal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mu3RfyO7j0

Narrative organisation:

• Like Skirt and Happy Holidays, our narrative organisation in linear and chronological. The only element which could be considered as more non-linear than the other two is the involvement of the 'flashback' which we see Jennifer experience as she discovers that Santa is not real.
• As I said earlier whilst analysing the other short films, I think a linear narrative is effective for our film as it avoids confusion and it allows the film to take a twist. If we were to begin our film with frame 9, there would be no mystery in the film at all. We thought using the title, as you can see in frame 1, 'Betrayal' wouldn't give away too much of the narrative.

Characterisation:

• Jennifer - the main character, has been presented as a lively, happy, and naive young girl throughout our film. From very few shots of the film we see Jennifer happily jumping out of bed to eat her chocolates. 

This big close up shot, with a shallow depth of field, portrays her excitement of Christmas and also tells us that her character is lively. The snow scene as we can see in frame 4, which is an over the shoulder shot of the mum watching the two play in the snow, also gives off this lively and happy persona which we wanted Jennifer to illustrate. Her nativity is presented through her belief that her mother is kissing 'Santa' in frame 6 as it takes her until the next day when she see his watch - frame 9 - to realize that the man who was dressed up in a Santa costume was her father.

• We decided to present the mother fairly typically, as caring and proud of her family, through shots such as the over the shoulder shot of her watching the father and daughter play in the snow. This care is also shown through the concern which we can see through her facial expressions when Jennifer does not seem herself whilst opening her presents on Christmas day.

• The father, like Jennifer, is portrayed as fun and lively through the snow scene where he makes silly facial expressions towards Jennifer to entertain her whilst they throw snow at each other and make a snowman together. But he also shows his concern her odd behaviour on Christmas day when he and the mother look at each other with worried expressions. His concern is also shown through his attempt to lighten Jennifer's mood with a Christmas cracker. This, we thought, was effective in illustrating fatherly affection towards Jennifer.

• The characterisation differs from the family in Happy Holidays as we aimed to create a realistic scenario rather than a comical scenario. There are some similarities, however, as both parents in each film show their pride over their child through positive facial expressions and Jennifer and the young boy look to be a similar age.

Use of Genre conventions:

• We have found that our film cannot be categorized into a genre. Unlike Happy Holidays, Betrayal is very difficult to slot under a specific genre. This is common of a short film as Steve Neal's theory explains that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference'. This is therefore difficult to achieve in a short space of time.

Editing/ post production and sound:

• Unlike Skirt, we implemented fade transitions to represented the change in time. Frame 3 is a snap shot of the scene where Jennifer is writing her letter to Santa. To change from this scene to the snow scene we used a fade to black and then cut straight to the bright snowy scene of the two playing together.
• Like Happy Holidays we decided to use music throughout. We thought this would emphasise the Christmassy feel but also emphasise the tension where necessary. I think it was a good choice to use music throughout as it kept the film interesting and gave off the different atmospheres which we wanted to portray throughout the film.
• Unlike Skirt, or Happy Holidays, we decided to record a voice-over of Jennifer writing her letter. This was used in order to enable the spectator to empathise with Jennifer as she writes her letter to 'Santa'. This did prove to have some challenges during the editing process as she spoke far quicker than she wrote. This meant that we had to separate the voice over and leave gaps to allow more time for Jennifer to write the letter in the film.

Themes and issues:

• Social realism was an issue for our film as we wanted it to be a believable issue that could occur in a family at Christmas. Discovering that Father Christmas is not real is something all children will experience - whether they are 5 or 13 years old. We also needed to make sure that the spectator understood that Jennifer was not aware that it was the dad who was kissing the mother when she looked through the door - she needed to look as is she believed it was Santa kissing the mother. This was supposed to be the reason why she was initially sad and angry the next day and it would be the watch on his wrist that made her realise that Santa and her dad were the same person!

• Another issue was how we were going to ensure that it was clear to the spectator that time was passing and the different events were taking place on different days. We overcame this by using fade transactions between each small scene.
• Another issue was that we needed to ensure that Jennifer was spending a fairly equal amount of time with each parent rather than just with the mother - Children often used to send more time with their mother as she would stay at home whilst the father worked. We decided, however, not to involve any mention or implication that either of the two had jobs in order to avoid this issue. We also ensured that we involved the snow scene between the father and daughter, which was not in the original storyboard, to overcome this issue.

• We also needed to make sure that we were not presenting the family as too stereotypical. We did decide to film a scene involving the mother and daughter making ginger bread men together - which could be seen as stereotypical - however we also filmed the snow scene with the father and daughter playing in the snow. This, I think, is not stereotypical as it could be seen as more of a father and son activity.
• Religion is another issue which we avoided as we thought it would be best to present a more modern, secular take on Christmas as we believed it was realistic in representing the majority of the British population's way of celebrating Christmas.

The Poster

My draft poster design:

The final poster design:

This is our final poster. Each of us needed to create our own rough poster design. Jack's poster design, however, was thought to be the most effective design in portraying our film. The font and other aspects were discussed as a group and we agreed that this design was appropriate. The final poster has been influenced by our research into other British films such as: Brighton Rock, This is England, Submarine, Fish Tank, Archipelago and various other film posters.

As you can observe, these posters are similar in a number of ways. One feature that all of them possess is a large title. It is always written in larger and bolder writing than any of the other pieces of information. This has been purposefully implemented for a number of reasons. One being, to create a trade mark - make the audience remember their name.

This is our title on our poster. After researching many different posters we thought this font to be the most appropriate. This font is quite a lot like Brighton Rock's font which we were inspired by. I also think that the choice of title is effective as just one word rather than two or three. We were thinking about naming the film 'Christmas Betrayal' but after much thought we decided that the single word 'Betrayal' was more appropriate as it gave less of the plot away. I also think it is more effective in terms of marketing the product as one word is often more 'catchy' and memorable than two. This will be the process which real directors have to go through in order to ensure that their film looks and sounds as appealing to their audience as possible.

The second largest font on posters is usually for the review comments. - before the film is released, film critics watch and write reviews on the film. Some may be positive and some may be negative. Posters will ALWAYS use the positive comments from positive reviews, however. This is because they want to sell their film. For example:

Brighton Rock:

Submarine:

Archipelago:

Here we can see that 3 different British films have used the critics' reviews very differently. Brighton Rock's poster has one word comments and has used two 4 star ratings. Submarine's poster, on the other hand has used lines from the reviews and seven ratings - two 4 star ratings and five 5 star ratings! Archipelago has used only 2 long comments and one 4 star rating in order to sell their film. In my opinion, I think Submarine's approach is more appealing. The poster for Submarine, however, has far more room for these comments as the image is very simple. If we put this amount of writing on our poster I think it would drown out the image and maybe even the title therefore I am happy with the font and amount of review comments that have been selected for the poster.

We all agreed that we'd use well known newspapers as they have a good reputation and we noticed that their opinions are clearly valued - rather than using The Sun, for example. Newspapers such as 'The Guardian' and 'The Times' are read by adults therefore this also tells us a little about the audience for the film.

In both the review and the poster, we thought it would be a good idea to mention our previous Thrillers - Paranoia and Hack.

This idea was inspired by Brighton Rock's poster:

We also were all aware that we needed to put a billing block on the poster. This is something all film posters have therefore we made sure we made one of these in all of our draft posters before deciding which one was best.

The writing underneath the title is called a 'billing block'. The information given in billing usually consists of the companies, actors, directors, producers and other crew members.

The Review

This is my practice review. We all learned how to use Indesign in order to produce our own review in the design of a Little White Lies review.

Here is the final review:

We based the way in which our review was written and presented on the Little White Lies' magazine. In order create this look, we all used the programme 'Indesign'. Here is an example of how Little White Lies tend to present their reviews:

Little White Lies have a very particular way in which they like to lay out their reviews. This review for 'Holy Motors' is positive overall. We can see this without having to read the entire view because at the bottom left hand corner there are always THREE ratings for: Anticipation, Enjoyment, and in retrospect. If you here - Holy Motors Review  you will be able to read this for yourself and recognize their particularly quirky style of writing.

• The Image is a screen grab of the film and is always placed at the top center of the review. It is also lined with the text. We decided to use this picture as her facial expression represents the title 'Betrayed'

• The Title is always placed around 1cm below the image and is in the center of the length of the image. 

• Beneath the title it has who it was directed by, the main actors, and the release date 

• The Text - There seem to be between 6-10 paragraphs in each Little White Lies review. Therefore, when writing the review, I needed to take this into consideration. The first paragraph in their reviews often gives us an overview of the film and usually specifies who the main character is, or mentions the director. The next few paragraphs usually go into more detail in terms of certain aspects they they were interesting, or unimpressive. This can be about the the main character/actor, certain shots, CG image-making, the director etc. It also often refers to other films under the same genre. For example, in the 10th paragraph in Jack Reacher 's review they refer to 'Daniel Craig’s 007'. Through noticing this, we decided to write about other Christmas films such as 'Nativity' and 'Father Christmas'. Then the last paragraph is about their overall impression of the film.

• Conventions of language - Little White Lies tend to use hyperbolic language and metaphors in order to give off a 'quirky' and friendly style. There is also a lot of use of field specific lexis in terms of filming and the effects used. This implies that they know what they are talking about and this also, in some respects, establishes their audience as many will know these terms as fellow film fanatics.

In our review we tried to ensure that it was formatted and presented in the same way and written in a similar style. In order to do this I read many different reviews on the Little white lies website - http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk and managed to gain an understanding of their style. It was challenging to pull this off as it was a new style but I tried to get into it by using some of the same methods to transform my own writing into something similar. 

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

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I used audience feedback in order to influence a number of the decisions made during the process of making the film, poster and the review. Firstly, I gained some feedback on how we should end the film. Face to face I asked a few different people how they thought we should end the story. 

We either wanted to end the film with:

1. The daughter thinking that her father is actually Father Christmas - so she's shocked but excited. 
2.OR we were going to have a more serious ending where Jennifer finds out that Father Christmas is not real.

• I received mixed views as some people said that the first idea would be better as it is a happier ending and they thought it was comical. 
• Another person said they preferred the first one because they thought it would be a possible scenario as children at that ages are often very naive. 
• A few people said, however, that they actually thought the second choice was far more realistic and though it was sad it would be more socially realistic and the other ending may be difficult to pull off as some people may not find it particularly funny.
• Overall, I found that more people thought the second ending would be more effective and more realistic.
• We as a group also thought the second idea would be better as we wanted to produce a socially realist piece. Therefore it was decided that the second choice was better because we thought it was more realistic and the first idea sounded too familiar as there are many films in which children discover their dad is Father Christmas and they are not socially realistic films.

The Poster:

After I had completed my draft poster, I asked 3 people from my target audience what they honestly thought - whether they liked it, and whether they thought there could be some improvements. I decided to carry this feedback through the use of Facebook chat.

I showed them this poster:

And I asked them these questions:

1. Is the image appropriate for both the film and the title?
2. Do you think using 'The Times' as a reviewer is appropriate for the film/
3. Is the font appropriate?
4. How many comments (e.g. 'Superb') do you think should be on this poster? Is one enough?
5. Overall, do you think this is a powerful image and would sell our film?

These of the 3 people I asked told me truthfully that there clearly needed to be a lot of changes. Therefore when it came to deciding which poster was most appropriate, I was far more aware of what people were looking for in a film poster and I felt my criticism was more accurate. 

The Review:

For my review it was essential that I recieved feedback in order to ensure that it sounded as proffesional as possible. My audience feedback for this was from my teacher. He, in my opinion, was the best person to ask as he is very aware of the different conventions involved in a Little White Lies review. If you click here > MY FIRST DRAFT  you will be able to observe that many aspects in my final review have been altered to meet these comments. I found the criticism very helpful and I am happy with the finished product.

 

After the film was made...

I wanted to know what people thought and whether there could be any improvements I could write about in my evaluation. So - I asked 3 different friends, from my target audience, 6 different questions. I thought the best way to carry out my audience feedback would be through Facebook chat. Here are the questions:

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'?

I felt it was important that I received male and female feedback as the film is for a unisex audience. I did find, however, that it was easier to collect information from girls as they were more willing to help. So - I have a couple more comments from girls than boys but besides from that, I was very happy with the feedback as I felt it was honest - which is very important.

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