Final Production: Short Film

Dear moderator,

Welcome to my A2 media blog where I have been recording my overall progress throughout the A2 media studies course. This includes all the individual stages of the production which are research, planning, production and finally evaluation. Below is my short film, 'Pendant' which is followed by two blog posts which feature my ancillary texts and so on. I hope you enjoy reading this blog.

Thank you,

Abel Clarke

(Please watch in 1080p)

Ancillary Text: Poster

Below is the first of the two ancillary texts. The text is the poster for the film.

Ancillary Text: Film Review

Below is the second of my two ancillary texts. This text is a film review of the short film.

(Please click on the image to enlarge it) 

Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is my answer to evaluation question 1. To answer this I used a directors commentary which showed parts of my production to emphasise the points I am making.

Evaluation Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

This is my answer to evaluation question 2. For this question I used a podcast with appropriate images being displayed.

Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is my answer to evaluation question 3. To answer this question, I used a combination of an audience reaction video to gather the feedback and a vlog to analyse the feedback.

Evaluation Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is my answer to evaluation question 4. For this question I used a PowerPoint presentation

Ideas for evaluation questions

Now that the post production and therefore the whole project is coming to an end it is important to start thinking about the evaluation questions and how to answer them. Each question covers a different aspect of evaluating the production such as the audience or the technology used. When answering these questions it is important to make sure that they are answered in various creative ways that would work effectively with the question in hand. In this post I will go through what each question is asking and the various options that I could use to answer each question.

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

With this question, I am being asked to show my understanding of the different sorts of techniques and conventions that are presented within film and whether or not what I have used lives up to the standard of those used in the professional environment. As well as this, I will also need to show how I presented this in my production. To do this, I can go look back at my research and see how that affected the final piece. After thought I think that the best way I could present this is through a directors commentary. This would consist of recording a voice-over on top of the finished main piece and in this voice-over I can talk about the certain conventions and media techniques that I used within my piece.

Here is an example of a directors commentary from the film American Psycho:

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

For this question, I need to consider how effectively my ancillary texts of a poster and a film magazine review link with my main production. As the main production will be a certain genre, in this case it being a thriller, the two ancillary texts need to compliment this by having the same sort of feel about them. This can be done in a variety of ways such as colour schemes, representations and so on. The two ancillary texts also need to show the basic premise behind the short film and this question will explain how this has been done. Finally, the ancillary texts need to fit the conventions of similar mainstream products such as professional posters and magazine reviews. To answer this question, I will use a vlog. This would mean recording myself answering the question as well as using overlaying images the poster and the magazine review.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To answer this question I will need to reflect and analyse what the audience think of the production. The majority of feedback I need to collect is from the intended target audience however I will also collect feedback from those who aren't necessarily the target audience to get their opinion. To collect this, I will do a reaction video in which I film the audience watching the film for the first time and them ask them set questions at the end to gather the relevant feedback and I will then report the findings in a vlog.

This is an example of a audience reaction video in which certain groups react to a topic which is relevant to them in some way or another:

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

In this question, I need to show how I effectively used media technologies in each stage of the production process which are the planning and researching stage, the construction stage and the evaluation stage. I will need to state every piece of technology that I used and how it was used to benefit the whole production process. To answer this, I will use a presentation of some sort. The best option is Prezi as it is both informative and a creative way of presenting.  

Sound: Music

There are two aspects to sound in a media production that need to be considered and thats diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sound is everything that is within the scene such as footsteps, cars driving by, explosions and so on. Non-diegetic sound is music that accompanies the scene for added effect, and this is typically done in the form of music. Music can greatly impact the feel of the production at its given stage. For example if the production was a thriller the music would have to be quite suspenseful whilst if the production was a comedy the music would most likely be upbeat.

For my production, music is key to make the scenes feel more mysterious as this is the intended feel of the whole film. Therefore the music will be quite harmonious and not include a massive amount of instruments as if only one instrument is used it can help represent how alone the character is when time is frozen. The problem with using music is that the majority is copyrighted. Copyright protects the owner as it doesn't allow others to use their music without consent. This limits the amount of music available to me as mainstream music could only be used if I contacted either the record company or the artist themselves. As there was no specific music I wanted to use I decided to stick to using copyright free music which meant I could use it without going through the process of getting permission. After researching, I found the best site to use was 'Incompetech.com'. This site was full of genre specific royalty free music which meant I could use it as long as I acknowledged the artist (Kevin MacLeod) somewhere, which I plan on doing in the credits of the production. The music on this site could be filtered to fit moods such as suspenseful, uplifting, bouncy and many more. Therefore I filtered it with the moods suspenseful, mysterious and dark and it came up with a large list of music that could be used and I found a few tracks that will work well and I will then implement into my piece.

Here is the link to Kevin MacLeod's site, Incompetech: http://incompetech.com/

Sound: Foley sound

As my production is a short film, the sound is just as important as shots. One important aspect of sound is foley sound. Foley sound is the extra sound effects added after the production process and can be anything from footsteps to explosions. This is useful as it can sometimes be hard to capture the sounds that make the whole production believable. For my production, I have had to add a large amount of foley sound. The most important foley sound is the sound of the pendant being used. This sound consists of a quick whooshing sound whenever the pendant is activated. This is effective as it confirms to the audience that the pendant has been used. Another less noticeable but important foley sound is the footsteps added. The original footsteps had to be edited out as there were other sounds, such as the wind, ruining the overall sound. Other foley sounds included the ambience that was associated with the setting. For example when the character is in the forest there is a slight breeze and bird chirping every so often and when he is in the town you can hear all sorts of things such as cars driving past, babies crying and church bells ringing. This background sound gives the production a more believable aspect. Below is a snippet from the production in which all the sound that can be heard has been added using foley sound.

  

Editing techniques: Flash Transition

Within my production, a pendant is used to stop time and it was important to make sure this is obvious to the viewer. One way to do this is using the transition effectively between the shot where he twists the pendant and the shot afterwards where he is in frozen time. After researching various options such as fading to white I decided that the best transition would be a white flash that takes the viewer to the next shot. The reason I chose this was because it gives off the idea something important has happened. The only hindrance about this transition is that it wasn't a preset on the editing software I was using so instead I had to create it myself. To do this I combined two separate video effects to make up the flash effect which were 'Fast Blur' and 'Levels'. Fast blur blurs the image quickly whilst the levels allow the colours to be changed. To make the flash effect I increased both the amount of blur and the amount of white every few frames until the image was completely white. The finished transition only lasts a second however it works well to make it seem like there has been some sort of change. Below is both a screenshot of how the transition was made along with a snippet of the production showing the transition.

 

Editing techniques: Colour Grading

An often less represented part of editing is the colour correction. The colour correction and colour grading applied can often change the overall feel of a film. For example if a film was light hearted it would have an overall bright colour grade whilst if the film was quite dark and gritty it will have a quite saturated colour grade. It is important to implement this as it can greatly impact the overall feel whilst not necessarily being noticed by the viewer. In my production, the use of colour will be used effectively. One of the problems I had was making it clear when the character had frozen time and when he hadn't, and this is where colour grading came in. For the parts where the character hadn't frozen time I saturated the colours 50% so that there was an overall gloomy look. However, when the character had frozen time I increased the brightness and contrast slightly as well as increasing the amount of yellow in the shots. This gave an overall brighter and enhanced look, which was effective as the character would also feel enhanced due to the ability that is available to him whilst he's frozen time. Overall, this was effective as the contrast between the two colour grades was greater than if I left one without any colour correction. Below is a preview of when the character first uses the pendant and it shows well the difference in colour between the two states.