Friday, 8 April 2011

evaluation plan

Rough evaluation
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- My film looks at the concept of objects having a life and reflecting the events they have seen in particular walls. The genre is closely linked with the conventions of the thriller category, this is due to the pace of the film where white sans serif font is superimposed over the footage and in the title sequence the audience are kept at arms length where I reveal a location reminiscent in is aesthetics, a convention iconic to the genre.
- In film there are theory’s that link how directors use technical aspects but also on how they represent characters, two main theories relate to my work one being Stranatis theory on postmodernism where the audience are made to acknowledge that the film is a film and not reality this can be done through camera work as well as narrative my film tries to create the story from the walls perspective which in its self does not relate the audience to a human character as well as not showing identifying close ups which also detaches the viewer from true character empathy and escapism however my film also includes to POV shots which are shot from both protagonist and antagonist which is rarely seen as a director focuses on one character throughout when trying to gain a connection between character and viewer.

The other theory is Laura Mulvey’s male gaze where she proposes every media text is seen through a males ideology and perspective and women are either seductive objects with what they wear or are weak and less dominate than the male, my film adheres to this even through representations change where at the start the man is perceived as , without remorse , the villain and the woman a nothing but positive character only the victim, towards the film this changes as the sound bouncing of the walls reveals her intent and deceiving ability to try and hurt the man.

• How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts?

I believe both represent the film with synergy and gain a coherence, each have there own conventions and I have tried to meet them all for example the film review tends to have one main image and two smaller images all footage from the film which can be seen in my review the language tends to be laid back with an air of humour which I feel mine incorporated these two things furthermore the majority of reviews I anyalises in total film would have sections that added a game like fill with diagrams giving the reader a clear understanding of the quality of the film and narrative for example I included a star rating and a section of “ if you liked this your like ……” where other films are linked in narrative and concept.

For film posters each design will vary however they will stick to this layout of title at the top of the page main image in the middle and film information such as studios cast production companies at the bottom of the page within these layout main actors will be shown and possibly quotes from reviewers acting as a puff to a the film. I have tried to depict the walls speaking to the subject within the poster but I also wanted a dark shot creating mystery causing the viewer to question what it is and to create a buzz about the film.

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

Initially we had to research short films I begin by constructing a list of what directors would establish within the opening and then look at the differences in feature to short films both in conventions and narrative. Furthermore I analysed film reviews and posters and for this task I brought a hard copy of total film where I deconstructed different reviews and posters most research was secondary being of the internet where I learnt techniques of film riot , a channel on youtube or tutorials such as premier skills again on youtube, to document my progress I developed my understanding of blogger where i embedded video to do this I had to upload footage onto youtube account, and this year I worked on my own windows laptop with my own Sony EXMOR camera shooting in high definition so the projects would export as 1800i , full definition , from this I learned only some files would transfer onto youtube and transfer from windows to Mac these being flv files that uploaded onto youtube with out hassle and for editing sound on sound booth on a Mac I used QuickTime.
As for sound I felt I have improved vastly from as to a2 this can be seen at 02.15 where I created a sound effect as the dialog echoes around the room, for this I added damp hallway and adjusted the ambience of the room create an echo feel which I feel created the desired effect.

Thursday, 17 March 2011

media evaluation notes so far

Media evaluation

- Technology
From as to a2 technology has not improved dramatically however there are aspects within the digital side of the project that I have improved on and developed my understanding of new techniques. For this project I have used my own laptop and my own camera, this has allowed me to film more regularly and give me the ability to work on my film at home as well as at school. As for post production im using a newer version of premier, which to me has not changed dramatically.

Development

With this project I am able to create a full narrative where as last year we were limited to only 2 minutes of a feature film, which restricts you both in timing as well as conventions for example a thriller opening will often have a series of tracking and panning shots establish location not to many things due to the amount of time left for the feature to run. With short films the director need to grab there audiences attention as soon as possible so that they are engaged for the short amount of time the director has to establish narrative location character and genre.

Theory
my film is shot from the walls point of view, the camera focuses on the male and presents the female as the victim which could be argued that it falls into the male gaze theory proposed by Laura Mulvey which suggest that the film industry is always filmed from the male perspective and portraying females as week and less of a social matter than men! Personally i chose the victim to be female purely because the male actor is a little over 6 ft and to have the smaller younger girl as the dominate one would seem un realistic, furthermore would subvert conventions of the genre, this example to me suggest that directors on the majority use actors and actresses that are convenient not so much to reflect dominance and a male gaze.

By looking at postmodernism within film the theory can also be linked to my film, the camera is positioned to represent the walls point of view and by doing this the audience dose not identify with any character apart from the use of the initial point of view which could suggest how this project brakes the theory and also adheres to its rules.



In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- In a visual sense