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

Here I did 4 separate videos to answer question 4:

Evaluation - Question 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here I have reposted the video of our first original feedback from a range of people just to remind you what was said. Below the video are my evaluation answers to question 3 illustrated through a variety of formats.



Below are all of the screenshots from our audience feedback. These screenshots are incorporated in my video below via images and voiceovers however the comments are more legible here:

_____________________________________________________________________________

Above are two comments we received on our Vimeo publication. One from an ex-media student and another from a Media Studies teacher.

Three quotes from our audience feedback (included in below video essay too)

And here is the video essay answer to Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

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

In the below video I have constructed voiceovers, examples, images, webcam shots, google stock images, text and music to illustrate and evaluate how effective the combination of my film review and poster are with my final film. 

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

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

To vary how I present each answer for my evaluation questions, I will be using a range of ways to show my answers instead of using video essays for all of them. This first post uses Padlet to represent how my film Identity uses, develops and challenges forms, codes and conventions of real media products. 

Splitting the question up: 

• in what way does your media product use and develop forms and conventions of real media products? 

Scroll left and right and up and down to view all of the material. Click on images or text to view larger. The below Padlet illustrates the common film noir conventions we conformed to within our film. The majority of these conventions were planned in storyboarding, scripting, research and planning as evident in our blog posts. However some shot ideas were produced on set e.g. the puddle shot as we continuously used our location of London to our advantage to find better or new ideas to use. Following film noir conventions doesn't necessarily make our film cliche, as we have adapted and modernised the concepts (such as using the architectural structure of the train station to represent venetian blinds commonly seen in film noirs).

Created with Padlet

QR Code option for smartphones and tablet access to our padlet. As stressed throughout my blog, interactivity is key in promoting material across the social networking industry.

• In way ways does your media product challenge or subvert forms and conventions of real media products?

Whilst we have followed many conventions, we have also subverted many too. The below Padlet shows many ways how we have differed our film from typical conventions of both film noirs and ordinary films. Again, click images and texts to view larger and in higher resolution.

Created with Padlet

Created with Padlet

Evaluation Video Essay of our best shots

Below I constructed a montage of video clips and voiceovers to explain what our favourite shots are, why and how we shot them, how we planned to shoot them, the editing processes we knew were necessary to add and also- a few shots which we didn't end up using but still like.

Screenshot of editing on iMovie. I used titles and transitions from the iMovie software and the voiceovers were recorded on my laptop speaker through Quick Time Audio.

Mistakes and improvements to Identity

The above film illustrates what mistakes we made during filming and what improvements we could have made. We spotted these issues both ourselves and through audience feedback when we got classmates to review what they thought. Although mistakes are often referred to as a negative thing, I instead feel it can only make us better media students as we learn for future reference through the experience we've had in constructing "Identity" together.

Audience Feedback on our film

Across a lunch time we gathered various candidates to come into the conference room at school so that we could interview them on their thoughts of our film. For each person we let them watch the film through and re watch any parts if need be. We asked them all the same questions separately so that they weren't influenced by each others opinions and all feedback is their own. Below is a short video I have put together on iMovie of the feedback we received. This will be extremely useful to draw conclusions from in which I will evaluation in my question 3 of the evaluation in a later blog post to follow.

Final Film - "Identity" by Allure Animations

Here is our final film - "Identity". Enjoy!

We uploaded our video through our Media teacher's vimeo account as the school have a membership with the site allowing us to upload the highest quality 1080p HD video rather than the standard 720p. 

Analysing my film review

Common film review conventions used:

• Title, age rating, genre, release date, actors involved, running time, director and publishing institution all referred to.
• Short synopsis covering the story/narrative of the film without too many spoilers.
• Verdict given
• Rule of three used
• Screenshots from the film used to draw the reader in and feel intrigued as to what happens. Shows well-known characters too.
• Access to trailer given via YouTube video
• Access to share to social media network sites
• Author of review not written but you don't often have this written on App reviews because of its type of interface/device
• Clear lay out with titles, subtitles and words in format of lists and tables.

Ancillary Task 2 - Film Review for Identity

Below the iPad screenshots show the "Vue" app I used to source the original film review. I wanted to use this as a template to make it look as though Identity was featured in-app. I used Photoshop to manipulate my own film review and took screenshots from our finished film. The reason I chose an App-based review is because most film reviews are either on a website (e.g. www.empireonline.com), in a magazine (e.g. Daily Mail Weekend) or featured in a newspaper article (e.g. The Times). Therefore with our more technologically advanced audiences these days shifting from old to new media, I felt expressing my review on a tablet platform would be more suitable - particularly when our target audience is young (mid 20s) with a likely higher disposable income present to spend on gadgets. What's really good about tablet apps and film reviews being on them is that interactivity is increased significantly as the audience can watch the trailer right there and then, they can access the website from their tablet internet and it gives them the ability to book tickets and share/promote our film through social media.

Original Film Review. I like the simple style, easy to read and short synopsis. I also like the 'at a glance' feature for people who don't like to read large chunks of texts, as this gives the key details and could catch the viewers eye who is flicking through the App screens. The ability to watch the trailer and book the tickets from the review itself is extremely interactive and likely to increase box office sales in return.

Contents page on a side bar to the left for easy navigation between articles in the March 2014 Vue Magazine edition.

Various film reviews with dvd/film posters present and function to scroll through various films to suit all genre preferences of the readers.

Social media widgets and email widget to share and promote the film more.

Ability to book tickets from the review itself.

My final film review. Analysis in following blog post. 

Colour Correction and Filters

After getting very close to the end of film, we had one last step we needed to take. We want to keep the institutions in colour but the rest of the film into black and white - traditional and conventional film noir style. We think it'll look much better in black and white. The city of London will look stylish, and monochrome tones have revolutionised to become contemporary once again. The high key and low key lighting contrasts will be much more distinct with a black and white overlay and the film noir conventions such as silhouettes will be much stronger.
Below shows the various filters we experimented with just to see what other possibilities we could use. We finalised the decision to go with the black and white overlay.

Teal & Orange / Colour Correction adjustments / Cold Steel / Strife / B&W / Dream / Numerik / Exposure/Contrast settings / Combat.

Cold Steel, Black and White and Combat are my personal favourites. Whilst Numerik doesn't go with our theme and Dream is too bright and over exposed for our shot types. 

Music Copyright

After finding, researching and analysing suitable music for a backing soundtrack for our film, we finalised on James Blake's "I Only Know (What I Know Now.)" However we were then informed of the syllabus specification advising us that we are to use copyright free music or have permission for our use of music. We then went ahead and contacted various important authorities of James Blake's record labels. Below are the screenshots of evidence for this. We have also included Copyright recognition in our ending credits and also on my ancillary task - I included the logo of A&M Records on my poster (one of James Blake's record label owners).

View in full screen for optimum quality

• However rather than simply pasting the song alongside our film clips; as we have progressively edited, we have trimmed and edited parts of his song and made our own compilation. For example, parts of the beginning of the song have been repositioned and reconstructed among our timeline of clips as have other parts of the song where we feel that particular piece of audio is applicable to the type of shot or mood we are looking to convey. 
• Moreover, we have added in Sound Effects from Final Cut Pro's selection of sounds such as footsteps, wind and crowds talking. 
• We also downloaded a copyright free piano track from www.freesound.org which we overlaid on top of the finishing rolling credits.
• For the clip of the Private Investigator's voice sounding like a hallucination in The Husband's head - we used a software programme called Audacity to distort the audio from the video clip to make it echo. 
• Throughout the editing we made many changes to sounds, their positioning, volume, fading in/out, layering and effects such as echo's were used too. I really feel like we have paid as much attention to the sound as we have the film itself and I think this is important, as our audience can use the music to help them feel more involved in the narrative. Creating a sense of reality and portraying a believable atmosphere, mood and tension between characters is only heightened through the use of effective sounds.

Click the image to view in higher quality

Managing time and tasks

With the deadline approaching I wanted to organise my work so I could be entirely sure what I have left to complete. Using Trello I have constructed a To Do list which digitally represents what tasks I have left to do, which are currently in progress and what is finished. Those labelled with yellow show me what are the most urgent tasks that I should prioritise. This post is mostly for my own benefit as it well help me finish touching up my blog in these final weeks in order to complete my Unit G325 coursework.

Click image to view in higher-res!

Creating the Titles and Opening Credits

To create the titles we already knew from storyboarding that we wanted the word "Identity" to split into two and horizontally wipe out in sync with the train doors. We wanted a simple, but not too basic, bold and capitalised font. We made it white with black border shadow so that it would stand out against the black and white filter overlay of the clip. We created the titles and the wipe to left and right pathways through Adobe Premiere Pro as the screenshots below show:

Using the titles sub window to create the sideways pathway of each individual text 'IDEN' and 'TITY'. We had to make sure both texts were centrally aligned with eachother as well as being in line with the split of the train doors. We then changed the speed of the transition/pathway in sync with the speed of the opening doors. 

This is where we chose from a range of fonts. As aforementioned, we wanted it to be simple, clear and bold and to appeal to both male and female audiences. 

Here is the clip we produced:

To create the opening credits we used Final Cut Pro and their selection of preset text effects. The screen shots below show the different steps used. We wanted the font to be bold, readable and have an interesting and professional entrance without obstructing the clip too much or distracting the audience from the film in the background. Where we could, we tried our best to position the opening credits at times during camera movement (e.g. the panning scene where Ryan and Alex's names appear) or where Poppy walks past the words. This creates a more dynamic look where it appears the video is interacting with the credits through the use of the transition. It is clever, slick and common convention I really like to see in a film.

Below is a photo and video collage I made using the iPad app VideoCollage. 

• Top left image: shows the timeline and where we added each title entrance.
• Middle left: shows FCP and Titles window
• Bottom left: video to show the actual credits and what they look like. N.B: the video is in colour because we have done the credits before colour correction.
• Top right: using the Transform tool on FCP to align and move titles to where we want them to appear within the frame.
• Bottom right: close up of titles presets available to us, we chose 'continuous' as we felt this looked simple yet slick and went well with our backing soundtrack.

Watch full screen and in HD for maximum quality.

Advertising Identity

Using Photoshop I then decided to interpret my poster as if it was being advertised in everyday public places. By using the perspective tool and stock images of bus stops and train stations, I was able to manipulate my poster to fit. As I am aiming for young males in their 20s, bus and train stations are both very suitable places for the poster to be advertised.

Screenshot to show how I used the Photoshop perspective tool to change the image to fit onto the subway advertisement billboard.

Analysing my poster

The following analysis shows my explanations for the decisions I made when designing and constructing the poster on Photoshop. I used my poster analysis knowledge (previous posts) to help me stick to conventional effective vectors on my poster like credits, actor names and institution logos. 

Ancillary Task - Film Poster for Identity

PLEASE CLICK ON ALL IMAGES TO VIEW LARGER AND IN HIGHER QUALITY

I really enjoyed designing this as it challenged me to be abled to wrap and represent the entire narrative and protagonist's personality within one single text.  I created the film poster using Adobe Photoshop and my initial key aims were to make the poster:

• contemporary
• stylish
• bold
• abstract and eye catching 
• coincide significantly with the themes present in our narrative

Target Audience

For my poster I am aiming towards a young male in his mid-20s of the ABC1 demographic. So in order to appeal to my target audience I used Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory to use Blake's sexuality to entice male viewers to want to see the film. I picked this photo out of the collection obtained from the photoshoot because I feel the sultry colour of her lipstick has semiotics of love and danger - both two things that a typical femme fatale character in a film noir will portray at some point or another. I also feel her facial expression looks seductive and therefore appealing to a male audience. Further analysis of my poster design is seen at the bottom of this blog post. Next I will show you the steps I took to put together this design:

Poster Plan I designed on Microsoft Publisher. Basic plan to show where I am going to put the main vectors of the poster and a guideline I'll use to follow on Photoshop.

Using watercolour brushes to create the background.

Adding a stock image of crumpled paper and changing the Blend Mode to Overlay

Making the cropped image of Poppy have a watercoloured appearance.

Adjusting the image adjustments e.g. Curves, Levels and Opacity. Also added brushes around the image of Poppy to look more natural with the background. She looks like she is floating in clouds which could be a metaphor for her state of mind.

Adding torn newspaper stock images to represent she is being looked for and that documents are being used to identify her. It shows the film's genre of a detective mystery.

I used Font Space to find the exact font I wanted. I chose a font which I felt would match the imagery so far. The font is capitalised, bold and grungey; all that would appeal to a male audience.

I used the Colour Picker tool to match her lipstick colour to the font colour. I then used layer masks and various brush sets to blend the text into the background to act as a double entendre that the WORD identity is hard to identify and is concealing itself within the poster.

I then found the "Universal Accreditation" font to create the credits. I added our institution logo, associated institutions and brands used in our film e.g. James Blake record label. These were all coloured using the lipstick shade again - to create a sense of cohesion and a house colour theme to the film.

I then added a tag line which is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emmerson. It acts as a decoding device for the audience as it will make them think - forcing them to be more active with the media text. This could be related to Stuart Hall's Encoding and Decoding theory, part 3; 'use' (distribution and consumption) "the decoding/interpreting of a message which requires active recipients. This is a complex process of understanding for the audience.”

Lastly I added some finishing touches like alignment, boldness, opacity and making sure all text was legible.

Close up of the film credits. Conventions used: 
condensed capitalised dvd credit font;
directors and producers listed;
institutions listed;
institution logos included;
film website;
release date in larger, alternative font;
QR code for increased interactivity;
cohesional colour scheme.

Theory - Applying media theories to our film noir and why we chose them

Press bottom left 'restart' button to see the animated interactive text!

The Enigma Code
Roland Barthes' enigma code is a theory that refers to the idea that a text, e.g. a film, uses complex narrative themes to make the audience question something and therefore read into the text with great interest. This could be something like Who is the murderer? Why is the woman seducing the male protagonist? or What is going to happen in the dark warehouse? An enigma code brings tension that builds up in a film to draw the audience in.

Where have we included and utilised this theory in our film Identity?

• The biggest enigma present in our narrative is Who is Mia Bramley and why has she taken all of The Husband's money?
• The false identity, theme of identity theft and an escaped wife exposes many questions the audience will have. For example they will want to know why she has run away, where she is going and what The Husband will do to her when he finds her.
• Lastly, we are going to use a mysterious soundtrack which has eerie sound effects to create a sense of unease for the viewer. The enigma codes are heightened by the tension that the music creates and the shots appear much more dramatic, believable and anticipating for the audience.

James Damico - Noir Narrative theory

"A man whose experience of life has left him sanguine and often bitter meets a not so innocent woman of similar outlook to whom he is sexually and fatally attracted…… an event brings about the sometimes metaphoric, but usually literal destruction of the woman, the man to whom she is attacked, And frequently the protagonist himself." 

Our film follows Damico's model in some ways in that The Husband has fallen in love and married somebody who in reality, he doesn't truly know and is 'cheated' by her. She steals his money, leaving his life to fall apart and thus fate has lead him down a journey of heartbreak, bankruptcy and a life of never knowing. 

THEORIES LEFT TO EXPLAIN AND RELATE TO MY FILM'S NARRATIVE:

Binary Oppositions - Claude Levi-Strauss
How did we portray binary oppositions? Through:
-high key and low key lighting contrasts
-switches between silhouettes, back lighting and normal lighting
-the tense hands of The Husband and the calm hands of the Private Investigator
-the louder, busierr and more chaotic scenes around London compared to the plain, dark, quiet scenes within the studio
-the contrasting appearance of Blake and Mia
-themes of life and death, light and dark, calm and angry, slow and fast paced shots/editing, low angle and high angle shots, blurred to focus in-camera manipulation.

The Male Gaze - Laura Mulvey
Poppy is subject to the male gaze theory particularly through our use of shot types. We often used close ups to fragment her body and accentuate her femininity e.g. her lips, hands, legs or eyes. Her lipstick, sound of her heels and seductive glazed facial expressions all further stress her sexuality and we use this to the advantage that it appeals to a male audience. The audience can gain an emotive connection with the character and thus pushes them past being passive viewer's to more active viewer's with feelings towards a 'fictional' person.

Music editing, trimming and constructing in Final Cut Pro and Audacity

Here you can see how we have divided James Blake's song Don't You Think I Do. This is because we only needed certain parts of the song and we had preferences as to what sounds suited certain clips. For example the opening shots of fast-forwarded London city, the train and the pan shot of Kings X all had subtle, quiet and 'opening' type sounds that eases the viewer gently into the film. At times we repeated sounds, cut parts from the end of the song and re positioned them and we also used the fade tool for a continuity blend between tracks and between tracks to voiceovers. Other editing involved changing the volume of the sound as when overlayed with voiceovers, the dialogue is more important to hear than the music, yet the music continues the mood and atmosphere that we are trying to convey through our noir, mystery genre. This screenshot was taken during the first stages of editing and we still need to fill in various gaps (not all), with sound effects and our own music (later explored in this post).

Here at about 1:45 secs, you can see where we have added a Footsteps foley sound effect. Although we collected our own foley sounds of Poppy's heels, we thought the Final Cut SFX of footsteps sounded better and clearer, especially as the shot we used it on was where she walks through a puddle. These foley sounds add a much more realism to the single shot alone along with the entire film for the audience listening/watching.

During editing we noticed a continuity error whereby Poppy appears in a mid shot in the lift with her head directing to her right, and the clip then cuts to a close up reflection shot of her looking to the left. To correct this continuity error we simply used the Effects tab in FCP, selected the Flipped effect and dragged it over the clip. This worked seamlessly with no problems as there was nothing in the shot (such as text/signs) that would've looked abnormal had it been flipped. 

At 2:25 secs you can see lots of short sounds constructed together. Here we used the FCP foley footsteps sound but cut the clip. In order to make the foley sound correspond with Poppy's footsteps, we needed to place each footstep sound in to the timeline in sync with her walking. This is time consuming and difficult to get accurate however once finished it looked and sounded very effective! You can also see another two foley sounds we used: Traffic City and Crowd Walla Bar. These two sounds simply added quiet background noise to our shots for a more complete, believable atmosphere for the viewer. The audio that was originally on these clips were too noisy and harsh sounding to be used along with the fact that much chatter can be heard between ourselves (my group) discussing shot ideas and directions whilst we filmed. 

This is a Mac application called Audacity which myself and Olivia discovered last year when constructing our music video. Last year we used it to crop one song into two and blend the two sounds together to make the entire music clip shorter to fit our music video. This time however we experimented with the effects on our audio from our video clips of Ryan and Alex to make gospel murmurring sounds which would act as an excellent base for a soundtrack or more sound effects in our film. Our favourite effect was the 'Echo' and is extremely apt for the audio scene where we want to fast forward the clip whilst Alex repeats things like "£11,000" "transaction" and "bank statement" to reinforce the identity theft and fraudulent themes in Identity. We simply export the sounds from Audacity, save as an mp3 file and import into Final Cut Pro