Evaluation- Question One

Evaluation- Question Two

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback without a doubt is a vastly important aspect regarding media projects. After the creation of a product it is always important to know whether we have reached our intended goal in terms of whether the film is suitable or appropriate for our targeted audiences and the best way to do this is to gain an insight from the audiences themselves. Gaining this insight will allow us to learn from our mistakes and further develop our film so that it suits the audiences preferences. 

Examples of how audience feedback has affected real media products:

>While filming Johnny English (2002) with director Peter Howitt, testing led to reshoots of the beginning of the film to set up the character better, and "test scores leaped considerably.

>Edgar Wright, writer and director of Shaun of the Dead, said in an interview that in test screenings done before the film's special effects were completed, audiences remarked that the ending was "a bit abrupt" and "lame". After being given a low budget and two days to finish shooting, the filmmakers added a "15 second" ending, which followup press screening audiences liked, leading to one reviewer changing his earlier bad review, giving "an extra star"

- Cases even exist of where test screenings lead filmmakers to completely change the ending of a movie, by having a character die who would have survived, or vice versa, for instance examples include:

-Mary Poppins 

-Final Destination 

-Titanic 

Regarding the audience feedback for our media products we conducted:

-Individual screenings 

-group screenings 

-Posted our film on sites such as YouTube allowing it to be viewed by a wide range of audiences.

We received positive feedback as well as some constructive criticism from online audiences.

-Our film poster as well as magazine reviews, were distributed to our audience by hand, so that they could experience the products at first hand which we believe worked successfully.  

Film Audience Feedback:

The reason that we had decided to go through with some individual screenings was to ensure that the audience were able to articulate their own opinions about the film instead of being influenced by another member of the audience. 

C.J - "I have also been late to school, maybe not late to an exam but I have definitely been late to school, so I understand the pain the character must have been going through"

Stefano - "I could really relate to the film, especially because I am still a student, so the film is easy to understand and the character is also easy to relate to"

Segun - “there was good fast paced score for the first part of the film, however after the mugging scene, the score needs to be a lot tenser and fast paced as it came across as too romantic, however in a sense it seems to create humour as there is a sense of romance between, the main character and the empty exam table, which adds to the light hearted theme of the film”

Moses - Well done, the film certainly targets school aged audiences, going through the exam period and I also found the film very entertaining and it had an interesting narrative”

As a whole the feedback that we had received was very positive and we as a group were very pleased indeed. There were many positives that arose from our film, we were particularly pleased with the comment by Stefano who had said "I could really relate to the film, especially because I am still a student, so the film is easy to understand and the character is also easy to relate to", thus showing that our film was a success as it managed to appeal to the right sort of audiences, mainly students who could relate to the character as they have experienced what the character has gone through before as C.J expressed "I have also been late to school, maybe not late to an exam but I have definitely been late to school, so I understand the pain the character must have been going through". However during one of our film screenings there was a lot of discussion and debate about whether the scores were appropriate for a certain scene:

One viewer explained “there was good fast paced score for the first part of the film, however after the mugging scene, the score needs to be a lot tenser and fast paced as it came across as too romantic” however after some careful consideration we decided to maintain the score as the majority of the viewers were for the ‘romantic’ score as it almost created “sense of romance between, the main character and the empty exam table, which adds to the light hearted theme of the film” explained a viewer. Remaining on the subject of scores, another issue was pointed out there was no score at the beginning of the film it seemed “rather silent” therefore we amended this issue by including a score at the beginning. Moving on to the cinematography aspects of the film, this generally received positive feedback, the only issue was that both endings from the first and second part were very similar, in order to amend this we made the cuts at the end of the first part a lot shorter and in quicker succession, which helped increase the tension and keep the audience interested.

In turn we cut down some scenes from the second part ending instead of repeating the first part.

First part ending:

Second part ending:

Finally we had intentionally aimed to produce this film for audiences ranging from 15 to early 20s, however after the screening early 20s was perhaps too old as the film was said to be more “for school aged audiences, going through the exam period” despite this minor setbacks everything went well. Generally I believed that we had achieved our purpose, it was “entertaining and had an interesting narrative” the theme and genre of the film was very easily established and the right audiences were targeted. 

Magazine Review Audience Feedback:

The magazine review also gained positive feedback from audiences.

Dan -  “ The text was simple but effective making it easy to read and making the outline of the film easier to understand, if the there was just blocks of writing on the page, I don’t think we would have the patience to read through it all. Also the image worked very well, it drew us as the viewers in right away, when I first looked at the magazine the first thing that caught my eye was the main image"

Adam - "The magazine review worked really well and it linked to the film and poster well with the theme of time and stuff but the only criticism I can give is that, the clock behind the text made it a bit difficult to read, maybe it can be made lighter"

There was one slight problem which was constantly arising, the problem was that the text was hard to read due to the image of the clock placed behind being slightly too dark, the feedback allowed us to respond to the problem and amend it by making the clock more opaque, making the text easier to read.

Before audience feedback:

After audience feedback:

The conversational tone of the text was a great addition as a viewer explained “also very easy to read, making the outline of the film easier to understand, furthermore the image worked very well, it drew us as the viewers in right away, when I first looked at the magazine the first thing that caught my eye was the image” in addition it was also established that the magazine would be perfect for the commuting public as the text is at a minimal so the message can be put across a lot quicker the majority of the viewers were all agreeing with the fact that “if the there was just blocks of writing on the page, I don’t think we would have the patience to read through it all". In addition the review managed to reach our intended target audiences of mainly students as they were able to relate to the story line therefore giving the urge to want to view the film and find out the outcome of the characters miserable day, overall our magazine worked well in terms of layout, text and appealing to the right type of audiences.

Film Poster Review:

Finally similarly to the film and magazine the poster also received positive feedback from audiences.

Kyle - "The thing  I like about the film poster is that, there are elements that give little signs away about what the film could possibly be about, especially when you tie the image of the clock and the title 10 minutes together, we get an insight that the film will most likely evolve around the theme of time"

A handful of the audience expressed the fact that "the theme of the film was easily established because of the film title and the images used" the image really had a comical effect with the clock hands on the forehead, this immediately gave the audience the idea that the film will go down a less serious route and take a much more light hearted theme. Furthermore the title also gives abit away about the film, “when you tie the image of the clock and the title 10 minutes together, we get an insight that the film will most likely evolve around the theme of time”.  

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

The Research and planning of our media products was very much aided by the internet, the internet allowed us to research into the background of existing products ranging from film different film posters to film magazine reviews ect. 

With the help of sites such as YouTube we were given the opportunity to access a wide range of short films in order to analyses as well as gain some ideas to follow up on our own products. 

Furthermore with all the information that we had collected, with the addition of blogger, we were able to create blog posts and begin to document our planning and research of our products. 

Regarding the production of our short film at A2 we had been upgraded from the DV cameras we used at AS level to SD cameras. The DV cameras that we had previously used produced low quality and grainy footage and were often very unreliable and we experienced a series of frustrating problems with these cameras. 

The introduction of the SD cameras were very beneficial indeed, there were no technical difficulties that we had to go through therefore our shooting session ran very smoothly and the footage was produced at a very better quality, which was another positive aspect.

Furthermore we were also benefited from having mobile phones on scene, due to the growing technological convergence of phones we were fortunate enough to capture images of our filming sessions which we included into our production of the posters as well as magazine. The huge benefit of having a mobile phone is that it is always in our possessions, therefore we had instant access to our phones, they were always available to use at any point in time.

Furthermore, for the post production of our products, we were introduced to some new as well as upgraded versions of software that we may have previously used at AS. Firstly iMovie 11 was a software which we were introduced, as appose to iMovie HD6 we had used at AS.

Despite the fact that iMovie HD6 was basic and extremely user friendly as well as easier to use, we believed that the step forward to iMovie 11 was necessary, this version of the software allowed us to incorporate things such as new:

-Titles

-Effects 

Photoshop was one of the new software’s that we were introduced to in order to produce a film poster, allowing us to edit and manipulate images. Photoshop was however very complicated to use as a beginner, a lot of patience and training was required to produce our final outcome and due to difficulties there were restrictions as to what we could and could not do. 

Pages was one of the more basic software’s that we used to create our magazine, however some training was required but this unlike Photoshop was a lot easier to pick up and understand so therefore creating and producing our film magazine was a process that ran smoothly. Finally once again with the aid of the internet we were able to source copyright free music, to add to our short film, in addition the internet allowed us to get some stock footage, to incorporate into our film poster as well as magazine.

Without a doubt the technology that we had used had an effect on certain decisions that we had made which in turn, affected the final outcome of our products. Photoshop for example gave us the ability to layer different images as well as manipulate certain images, despite these advantages we were very much so limited with the amount of things that we could do as we didn’t have as much training required to produce professional looking posters, however in contrast we were relatively confident with iMovie as we had previously familiarised ourselves with it at AS level, this gave us the opportunity to have a more confident approach whilst planning our film as we knew what we could and couldn’t do as we knew our strengths as well as weakness, this very much contributed to the successes of our film. 

In addition the fact that iMovie was a nonlinear editing software was very useful, as we were able to experiment with different footage and change things around, this also gave us the opportunity to tweak footages to our preferences, which links in well to the audience feedback as we could easily use the advice given by audiences to change things around. 

The technology however seemed to lack in certain areas such as the camera’s, firstly having dialogue in our film would have been a problem as the SD cameras that we were using made it difficult to pick up sound, as the microphones were simply not decent enough, due to this default we opted to create a film without dialogue, we hoped to create a film which described the narrative with the use of scores and cinematography which worked successfully. 
Also the camera gave a really grainy effect:

To some extent this could be useful for a more serious film, as it creates a sense of depth and realism, however our film was a much light hearted one, therefore the flat grainy effect didn’t really do us any favors.  

Finally it is without a doubt that the internet has changed our project in terms of research, post production, evaluation and the distribution. The social network sites which are easily accessible, allowed us to reach a wide range of different audiences, especially sites such as facebook, Youtube ect.

Which attracts audiences from different corners of the world, in turn allowing them to view our film, this was extremely useful because without the internet we would have a limited range of audience, only the peers amongst us would be able to view the film. Finally the benefits of the internet and social network sites is that they a free, affordable and easy to get hold of, in addition with the grace of technological convergence, social network sites and various websites can easily be accessed from mobile phones, which is a great advantage as it allows audiences to access the products, any where and everywhere

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Our short film on the mobile version of Youtube.

10 Minutes Film

The final version of our short film '10 Minutes' :

Poster Final Outcome

Overall we were very pleased with the final outcome of our film poster we managed to re-create an almost exact copy of our previous poster design, we had made a few changes such replacing the position of the tagline and adding the clock hands, however as stated before we were extremely happy with the eventual outcome of our film poster.

Magazine Review Final Outcome

Similarly to the final outcome of our film poster, we believed that the film magazine review has been created successfully, once again corresponding very well to the initial design of the magazine.

Mode of Address- potential opening paragraphs

IDEA ONE:

Ten minutes is a long time. It can make you or break you, it can change your whole life. Young Sergy Nkulufa's life is about ot take a turn for the worse, and the best, in the new blockbuster '10 minutes', produced by director Callum Bates. The film follows the life of Sergy through two perspectives- essentially good and bad. The bad perspective sees him wake up ten minutes late on the day of an important exam, and a series of unfortunate events follow, ultimately ending up with him failing the exam. The good perspective shows the opposite, Sergy waking up on time and avoiding all of the drama recently seen through the bad perspective. The film really does focus on how 10 minutes can really make a difference....

The first idea we came up with uses a slightly developed mode of address, not too simple, but also not too developed or hard to read. It is intended to engage the target audience, and make it easy for them to read the article. The example contains a lot of one liners, making the article interesting for the audience to read, while slowly introducing them to the concept of the film.

IDEA TWO:

The film 'Ten Minutes' is a comedy, mixed in with social realsim. The plot follows a young man through two perspectives regarding the same event. One perspective shows the character waking up late, causing a catastrophic day, ending in him failing his final exam. The other shows the opposing perspective; the character manages to wake up on time, fortunately avoiding the recently seen events, and ultimately passing his exam. The film shows high qualty drama, and is extremely similar, in concept at least, to 'Run Lola Run'. The idea that ten minutes can change your life really hits home, and engages you in a unique way, causing you to imagine yourself in the characters scenario.

The second idea uses developed language and is targeted at a serious audience. An example of this is that the article assumes that its audience knows the film 'Run Lola Run', giving no background information on the film whatsoever, respecting the audiences intelligence whilst also engaging them in a professional manner. This idea would be targeted at people such as film students.

IDEA THREE:

The film '10 minutes' is an action filled blockbuster. We are shown the life of Sergy Nkulufa as he wakes up on the day of an important exam. However, we dont just see one side of the story, oh no, we see good AND bad. First we are shown Sergy unfortunately missing his alarm, and waking up ten minutes late, causing a chain of events, featuring an exciting mugging scene, that causes him to fail his exam. The other side is the good side!! We see Sergy waking up on time, luckily avoiding the events seen beforehand, resulting in him passing his important exam!! The film is exciting, action packed and absolutely hilarious, don't miss it!

This idea uses very simple language intended to engage a casual reader that may be just skimming through the magazine, not having the time or will to read a fully developed and detailed article. Exclamation marks are used for emphasis, along with capital letters. The film is summed up quite quickly, and the writer directly speaks to the reader.

Poster Designs

This is the first poster design that I came up with, it shows the good and the badside of the day in which the character gets up ten minutes late. As you can see it is a rough plan that i drew up quickly as a basis to my final idea.

This is my final idea drawn up neatly. As you can see the 10 minutes will be in digital clock form which will hopefully grab the attention of the public. whilst the main image will be the main character which in this case is Sergy. One side will show the neat and tidy on  time Sergy, on the other side will be the late and scruffy Sergy. This is then seperated by the alarm clock which will be big and bold for the audience to see which is associated with the film.

Magazine Layout Designs

DESIGN ONE This layout can be seen as more consise and to the point, with the emphasis on the main text of the magazine with two images accompanying it. The reader will be atteacted to the ain image at the top of the page and the break out box directly next to it. The article will be packed full insightful anaysis of the film which is easy to ready whilst travelling.

 

 



 

DESIGN TWOThis magazine layout that I have created and could be used as for our magazie article. As we are targeting 15-21 year old commuters. This layout is neccessary as it is a souble page spread with people normally reading from left to right, they will be instantly drawn to the big image on the right hand side and therefore would be interesed in reading which will be a detailed but compacted review of the film. The added breakout box gives the reader further insightful information on the actor and hopefully they would be attracted to read on.

Magazine Layout Idea

 

1- Section Title: this will contain the title 'Teen Film', one of the names we came up with for our film magazine. It will also contain a red star, as the logo of the magazine.

 

2- Title/Headline: the title will be '10 Minutes', with the '0' being an alarm clock. The font used for this will be big and bold, intended to be eye catching for our target audience.

 

3- Strap Line: 'Have you got time to spare...', this is a witty, yet simple, line that directly relates to our film. It also helps the article to engage the audience, and immediately retain their attention.

 

4- Main Text: two columns will be used for this, and it will solely contain information on the film. Background information will be provided, along with information on the characters and opinions on the film itself. The language used will be engaging, but not too developed as our target audience are more likely to be entertained this way, as opposed to a developed, serious synopsis.

 

5- Main Image: this will feature an eye-catching picture directly relating to our film. The image will be split in to two, one of the main character looking worried and in a state of panic, and the other showing the character in a postion of power and confidence.

6- Breakout Paragraph: will contain a quote from the main text which will help to grab the audiences attention.

7- Breakout Box (1): will feature an 'if you liked this, you may also like' type of breakput.

8- Secondary Image(s): Image of mugger holding the main characters bag- eye catching and relates directly to the film

9- Breakout Box (2): contain facts on the film. This could include location facts, casting facts etc. Anything which will help to entertain our target audience.

10- Issue Info: will contain things such as the date the magazine is issued, etc.

 

 

 

 

 



 



Character casting

Main Character : Sergy N'Kulufa

We have chosen Sergy as he is typical teenage boy which best suits the role of our film. He will play the role very well as he is an innocent well behaved boy.

Mugger :Callum Bates

Most suitable for the role because he has the tall appearance and typical clothing of what we would stereotypically associate a mugger with.

Film Magazine Review Text

Here is a sample of our magazine review text, we introduced the element of conversational writing in order to appeal to our target audience, of the mid teens to early 20s.

10 Minutes

Ten minutes is a long time. It can make or break you, it can change your whole life. Young Hubert's life is about to take the turn for the worse, and the best, in this short film 10 Minutes', directed by Callum Bates. The film follows the life of Hubert through two perspectives, essentially good and bad. The bad perspective sees him wake up ten minutes late on the day of an important exam and a series of unfortunate events follow, ultimately ending up with him failing the exam. Pretty bad say id you ask me! The good perspective shows the opposite, Hubert waking up on time and avoiding all of the drama recently seen through the bad perspective and eventually receiving a 'A' in his exam. Yippee! Bates said "the film was inspired by the block buster 'Run Lola Run' and aims to entertain audiences with a mixture of humour and despair"

And there's definitely elements of humour and despair, lots of it in fact. You just can't help laughing your head off at the luck Hubert has during the bad perspective, all caused by waking up ten minutes late, but you also feel a sense of sympathy for Hubert as his day gradually gets worse and worse. From missing his breakfast to getting robbed, Hubert just can't seem to get his day back on track. However, this despair is instantly healed by hubert's luck in the possesses, solely due to waking up on time is amazing and heartwarming with the added effect of humour making the film a classic.

Magazine Designs

The magazine review designs were heavily influenced by Empire magazine, we aimed to perhaps emulate the page designs which were dominated by main and secondary images which gave a great over view of the film, followed by a brief analysis and review of the film. The designs in my opinion are very simple however they work extremely well in terms of appealing to our targeted audience. Furthermore the text within Empire magazine was extremely conversational compared to the other magazine reviews, therefore using this magazine as a basis for our magazine designs works very well. 

IDEA 1:

This idea clearly shows some aspects which were gained from Empire magazine, the two images, main as well as secondary, both take centre stage within the magazine, very much focusing on our film. 

IDEA 2: FINAL IDEA

We had decided to aim to create and produce this magazine design, the image will be the main focus of the magazine review, therefore it will be important to select an image which reprosents our film very well indeed. Furthermore the film review will contain all the information neccesary in order to give the audience a good insight into what the film has to offer, the brief review won't give too much information away to the audience, to keep them guessing as to what will actually unveil in the film itself.