Evaluation of Production, how we challenged use and conventions of media productions
Our Production comprised itself upon many twists and turns within its narrative structure, almost to throw the viewer off balance when trying to deduce the meaning behind the film, this is achieved by using a variety of shot types, locations, actors and acting styles. These shots consist of shots found within short films yet used sometimes at the same time, with static professional looking shots being used within some parts and joggy documentary styled shots within the bulk, almost looking amateurish but really a clever ploy on the viewer.
The use of soundtracks did play a large part within the structure of the film, not because of it’s inclusion but by how it solidifies on one genre of film, which in turn when the genre changes will throw the view off balance. The use of a classical piece within the first few minutes with a transformation to a voice-over is a classic example of this. The use of costume, falling into the category of mis-en-scene, is also used in this film, not as much as would have been seen in other films dedicated to the costume drama genre, but still a respectable amount, and with it still looking period accurate was also a great boost. Speaking in terms of lighting the film was not really contrast in the usual sense, it was rather light throughout, with not too much glare from the sun, which was a bit of a problem during filming, and good matching of colours to the period of the day.
We used a fair few settings within the film, using about four or five, more than some short films, who usually use a maximum of two or three, and all were done on a budget, which turns out was nothing, which explains the majority of the film taking place in outdoor locations, which judging by the shorts I have seen personally, it’s not seen as that much of a big deal, meaning that it’s not an immoral thing to do, the only problem we had, was the weather it was rather cold to say the least.
Like I said before, short films tend to keep to as least amount of main characters as possible and we tried to replicate that, our main characters predominantly being the two ‘actors’ and the ‘production team’, and most of these actors will never be known for acting ever again, but a few move towards acting as a profession, and this how many celebrities start out, which we sort of paid a little homage to within our piece.
Representation is shown for the characters as would be stereotypically accepted, with the Hollywood ‘star’ as being rather arrogant, annoying, maybe even a little bit angry with a short fuse, which we had an easy source of inspiration from recent times such as the actor Christian Bale’s now famous rant on the set of Terminator Salvation. The couple are shown as one of any rowing couples seen in stereotypical marriages, with the woman being the clear dominant one and the husband being rather weak and weedy. There doesn’t seem to me to be any dominant age group in the film, yet I do feel that the film is class dominant, in this case the Middle class is dominant, I can’t help but feel it’s from the Costume drama section.
There is definitely a theme to our film; it is based around the structure of reality, the perceptions of people and the basis of love, we were asking the questions on a “What if…?”…or “What is?” line, we toyed around with a few concepts but eventually found that it love would be the best to use. It was inspired by ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ which is based on perceptions and love.
Ancillary Texts and Final Product Effectiveness
The Ancillary texts add depth to the film experience, which assists in the effectiveness of the genre switches that go on, by not giving away too much to the plot it does give people an expectation to the film which is totally disregarded once the film is in effect, this is most effective through posters and reviews.
Each one of the posters created were inspired from the film with a clear view of not giving any plot away but to draw the viewer in to essentially get them in to find out the plot for themselves, the posters can be used to guess the plot type but we were sneaky as we played on what people would expect to see and then show them something else. Once people are aware of the film many would attempt to acquire as much info on the film as possible before their first viewing, given that this was a possibility we wrote film reviews as would not give away much of the plot, in a perfect world there would also be a trailer to go with a film such as this, if it were a full length feature film, but as this is a short film, I feel it would have been redundant and may have given too much plot away.
Promotion is key to getting a film seen in the cinema, yet for this process directors and distributors must be a bit biased and show all the best parts in a trailer, a poster or, if they can get the influence, a film review, yet this is highly un-common, it would only be seen if the owner of the film company owned a newspaper company also, for example a Rupert Murdoch Figure, most film reviews have to be neutral in order to get a fair analysis, yet there are some which are more positive in order to bring in more viewers to bring in more money, they will not be completely positive but there will be a better feel to the review.
Advertising for a film can be a bit problematic, there are two possible options, one is to go the cheap way, advertising in the middle of the country away from the intended cinemas, or the expensive way, by advertising right near the cinema and having everyone see it. Advertising can be expensive or cheap, depending on the type of directors or how much money is available, there is a possibility of a compromise yet this would be problematic.
The ancillary texts for our group are of a very professional standard, the posters are of a very high quality, with the possibility of being full sized and the reviews are written to a high standard also.
New Media Technologies Used
We used a variety of new modern technology in the process of making this film; we probably would not have been able to do most of this film without it, the cameras for example were digital, very easy to upload to our editing software and very easy to use, whereas if we were using analogue cameras we would have had problems with upload times and usage. To create the film posters a digital camera was used, a Fuji Finepix s5100, and Adobe Photoshop Pro 4.For editing we used Magix Movie Edit 11, which was relatively easy to get the hang of as we all were present at some editing sessions it did seem like it would be an easy program.
The internet and satellite technologies of the modern age helped very much in organising us for film days as without it we would have found it difficult to find places to film and to communicate.
Audience Feedback
As the group is showing the film to different types of audiences I thought I would experiment and do a comparative test, one age group very young and one middle aged, as to see who would get the message better, or at all, and surprisingly they younger group grasped the concept better than I would have hoped, some thought it was just an extra piece to go with the film and others found it to be really clever once it was explained to them that is. The older generation had to have a little more explanation as they were completely confused from the first viewing, so with a little time to reflect they got there in the end, as this selection of people was not of the film buff category they did not have a great deal of analytical prowess but few were helpful none the less.
Darrill aged 43 said “I found that the structure was slightly confusing, but it was nice all the same,”
Andrew said “Although it is amateur made it has a great deal of potential and has a great set of people, I just wish there was more of the couple rowing.”
All things considered I think most of the people asked really enjoyed the experience, not just the adults but the kids as well, yet it was a shame that there were not any different classes of people, yet there was nothing that could be done about that.
