1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
-My short film uses forms and conventions from different genres, not fully conforming to one genre. It is an artistic film set on delivering a message, that mans industrious ideologies are destroying our natural habitat. The film uses the medium of visuals and sound to convey this message, this has been done in a very similar way to Clio Barnard's The Self Giant. I have used idyllic British countryside locations littered with industrial memorabilia and structures which represent mankind, a similar technique has been used in The Selfish Giant.
-My sound differs from the conventions however, I have chosen to use simple sounds which bridge over entire sequences. Using this technique makes the film much more stylised, this aspect of my film is what sets it apart from a documentary. A documentary is normally formal and aims to inform and teach its method using facts and dialogue, I have chosen to visually demonstrate my message.
Unlike The Selfish Giant, my film does not have a human incarnation of a character, instead the characters of my story are the two binary opposites. Man v. Nature. They are represented differently within the film, nature is beautiful and pure whereas man is destructive and controlling. These are typical representations with films that promote the same message.
My film mimics the wintery-cold look of the film, draining the colour variation whilst maintain the similar picturesque feel. Whilst most of the Selfish Giant is character focused some sequences contain entirely natural focus, featuring prominently after a significant incident, inserted into the film to allow the audience to reflect. These sequences consisted of minimal sounds and had no focus on any of the characters, these were the parts I took the most inspiration from, the visual focus made more of an impact.
During one of these reflection sequences in The Selfish Giant we hear nothing but the low hum of the pylons, I have replicated this in my beach extract. Towards the end when we start seeing run-down boats and scrap on the beach I have inserted a distant, repetitive engine sound. I believe that it has the same effect, the sound is threatening, looming over the audience.
One of the main inspirations for my own poster is the poster for 'Wild', I chose this poster because both of the films share the nature theme and the 'Wild' poster provides a nice platform for tweaking. My poster contains conventions of regular film posters, like reviews down the bottom and release information. However, the image I chose only reveals one of the three locations in the film but contains all aspects of each part, the fog, meadow and forest in the background.
My film is a very artistically stylised piece, I tried to make each shot seem like a painting of British landscapes. The lack of movement reinforces this, each shot only containing gentle, minimal movements which represent the brush gliding over the canvas. This stylisation choice is what sets my film apart from other short films in this genre. I feel like using this technique really works for my film and the type of film it is.
Expanding on the stylised choices within my film, the sound was extremely experimental. For each sequence I wanted a single, repetitive tone that would perfectly conform to the shots.
For the opening Meadow part I wanted something with a religious undertone, it needed to be relaxed and also portray the British country side and its culture. For this I experimented with different percussion instruments used in churches, nothing I covered really fit with my visuals. Whilst searching for religious sounds I came across a .WAV sound of church bells ringing on a Sunday, calling people for prayer. After inserting this sound into my film I decided it really worked, despite it being non-diagetic it really tied all of the shots together like it was actually echoing over the landscape.
For the Forest I wanted something that sounded both threatening and enticing at the same time. The sound track needed to welcome the audience into the wood whilst remind them of the hazards. To achieve this I had to make a soundscape for the entire section, I started with a base layer of trees rustling, this created a nice flat sound I could expand upon which also tied all of the shots together. I then experimented with some sounds of birds, looking for something to provide the danger. The sound of crows worked well for this, the file I used was not too repetitive but provided a varied amount of crow sounds that could span over the entire sequence. For actual score I wanted something slower and simpler than the bells, it needed to fit with the darker atmosphere and lighten it a little. For this sound I looked into string instruments and eventually settled on the sound of a cello being plucked. I found three different sound files of the cello being plucked and inserted them into Adobe Audition. When putting them in I did not put them in a certain order
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts
Combination of moving images and stills.
How my film, poster and review all relate. Why I chose those shots. How I used the mics
I chose this design and photograph for my poster because it closely relates to my film. The picture was taken in the same location as one of the scenes in my film.
However, for my poster I decided to Photoshop some cooling towers into the background, they were originally supposed to represent man standing over nature, I chose cooling towers because they are industrial and their shape is easily recognisable. However, this created a problem in that people might be mislead into thinking the film features or is about the cooling towers.
I believe the themes of my film are neatly portrayed within this poster. The nature is shown through the inclusion of the meadow, and man is included through the cooling towers, standing over the landscape. The slightly depressing downbeat feeling within my films is portrayed through the muting of colours and dark pallet.
If they were real, a place my poster and review would appear would be a Sight and Sound magazine. Sight and Sound prominently features specialised films, much like mine, making it ideal for my product. I have also written my review in a similar style to Sight and Sound.
Producing this film also required me to learn how to use different hardware. For this film I used my own camera, a Canon EOS 550D, rather than the schools camcorder which I had used last year. The new camera required me to look up tutorials on YouTube or teach myself on how to use it and what each button did.
This year we also had access to a Camera Microphone, RODE VideoMic GO. This allowed me to record much higher quality sound compared to the inbuilt microphone. The installation of the microphone was very simple and required very little effort and still boosted the production value of my film. The external microphone was far superior to the inbuilt microphone, this was because the built-in mic has lower quality and is vulnerable to wind. Because the built-in microphone lacks any kind of wind protection the sound can be damaged by the noise of excessive air passing into the microphone.
The poster demonstrates each part of my film nicely. The poster contains the three dominant part of the three sequences in my film, the meadow, fog and trees in the background. If someone saw this poster they would be aware that all of these things are in the film.
All three products I have made create synergy between each other. The review describes and sells the film in detail, highlighting what each section of the film has to offer. Because of the heavy use of description, audiences can predict and visualise what the film is going to look like. The review also offers parts which let the film down, this is appropriate because it allows the audience to be aware of these issues and identify them when they occur.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Social Media
How did you use the feedback
I uploaded my original poster to Instagram and asked for people to comment on what they thought about it. From the feedback I found out that the picture and overall poster worked however, improvements needed to be made.
- Here you can see the changes I have made, the first suggestion was to remove the cooling towers as they do not feature in my film. Their inclusion in the poster might have mislead audiences into thinking they appeared in the film. One of the points I received spoke about the name of my film and how it doesn't really work, I however disagree.
After publishing my film I asked people to watch it and give me feedback for any changes I could make in the future, or if I had more time;
The general feedback was positive besides a few small points which I am aware of. One thing that was picked up on multiple times was the longevity of the short film, people said that each sequence drags on for a little two long and threatens to make the film boring. If I had more freedom with the timing and had more time I would be able to fix this issue, removing several shots out of each part. One critique I got was of the static nature of my shots and camera, I can see why someone would say this if they did not know that was the chosen style of my film, I would not alter my film to include more movement. The last major issue people had was the name, because it is not in English people did not understand the meaning. This could mean that people are
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
-Throughout my production and research stage used different media technologies to further advance my products. For the research I used YouTube and Vimeo to find short films and videos that I then took inspiration from. For my original idea I took inspiration from the Curmudgeons, a short film on Vimeo, I attempted to replicate the representation of elderly people in the same way this film did. Vimeo provides a better platform for short films because of its target audience, Vimeo attracts a specialised audience already seeking short films unlike YouTube, which supports many different types of audiences. This means that people seeking and exporting short films on YouTube are often lost amongst other content on the site.
Much of my Foley sound I used came from Freesound.org, a website which offers free download of many non-copyrighted sound. Freesound allowed me to use sounds which I would not have otherwise been able to create, like the two minute long track of church bells. Not all my sound has been taken off freesound however, during the beach sequence I used many of my own recordings for the waves.
I used the software Adobe Premier Pro for development of my final piece. This software allowed me to turn raw video clips into my short film. It also allowed me to edit the original clips, cropping them down and editing the colour etc.
The learning curve for Premier Pro was very steep, when I first started to edit my film I decided to use multiple different complex techniques. This required me to look up tutorials on YouTube.
For example, I did not know how to change the colour of my footage, after some research I found out that I needed to use the Three Way Colour Corrector.
Manipulating the disks and tonal-sliders allowed me to correct the colours, thus altering the entire mood of the shot. Take these two shots, the unedited ones are slightly overexposed and too bright. Using TWCC I removed the over exposure, decreased the saturation and decreased the brightness.
After learning about different techniques and researching different filming techniques I feel like my film improved from my original idea.
For example, the fog alternative to my poster required me to look up how to achieve that on YouTube and Google.
To create the mist layer I had to make a custom brush tool using samples from the pre-set cloud layer. Using the custom brush allowed me to 'paint' the fog onto the image. This technique allowed me to give the fog a 3D feel, as it creeps around the terrain and shrubbery.