Kalams Blog

Friday, 15 March 2013

Question Four

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

For the construction of our short film we agreed upon the genre in which we want our film to be, we decided upon a comedy genre and we chose a case study which will act as a prime example for our film,and we wanted Mr Bean to be that case study. We also decided that our film would be a silent film, where the main character would not speak and would make comedy through his facial expressions and body language, due to this reason we thought that Mr bean would be the best for this due to the reason most of his films are the best for this technique. We also came up with the story of our film through viewing clips of MrBean and other case studies on YouTube as well as our own ideas. YouTube is a great research resource because it enabled us to view any clips of Mr bean and also clips of other case study’s thus giving us the ability to have a widened amount of ideas to choose from, YouTube was also a great research resource because it gave us the opportunity to look at other case study’s which we hadn’t kept in mind and we could note down the key point which we take from the clips and share it on our blogger. Blogger was an easy diary to use; it was really basic and simple so we could get round it comfortably. It allowed us to share clips from YouTube and save it on our diary plan and also talk a bit about the clip, this was really great full as it allowed showing evidence that we did research upon clips from YouTube. Blogger did allow us to keep us organized because it worked as a diary of everything we did so we could review our work and view and strength and weaknesses in our project. Blogger was a better tool to use compared to Wix which we used last year because blogger gave us the opportunity to talk about our work more in depth and it gave us the ability to track our work easily as well. We viewed more clips through YouTubeto see other case study’s to try and take out some valuable points and features which we could use in our film. We also looked at other case studies like east is east and 4 lions, to help us give some ideas on Mise-en-scene, Camera angle and the way they use Sound and how they use all the elements stated. After that we finalised the story line of the film, we finalised locations of each scene, we finalised costume and props which would be needed and wrote up all the points made on blogger. We wrote up all the ideas on word using a template which the teacher gave to keep us organized and stay update. We downloaded the templates from the college MLE Moodle; this was really helpful as the templates would work as a guide line for the work. The templates which we used were the risk assessment, recce form and also the guide to answering the questions for the evaluation. As most of these templates are difficult to draw, by having already made template it made everything more easily, we could fill the template up without any stress on how to actually draw up the template.Next we wrote up the storyboard on a template on paper and we also wrote up a script for the film on Microsoft word. After all this, we decided to start to shoot the film via a cannon HV40 camera and a tripod. we had use this camera last year for a different project in which all the students had grasped a few knowledge about how to use the camera, we also used the camera as a training to remind ourselves how the camera works, overall using the camera wasn’t difficult it was simple to use, at first we had problems with the camera because we there was four modes to the camera and we would save the clips we took in different areas in the camera so that was at first the only problem after we knew how to overcome this problem it was much easier to use the camera, the technician taught us about how to save the clips on the right mode. Another criticism about the camera which made it difficult for us was the amount of time the camera would last, even after charging it fully the battery would die after two or three hours of filming which meant that we had to sometimes call it a day even with a few footage left. As a group I and Aadam shared the role of camera work and Akik was staring as the main actor, this was because I could track and pan the camera at times really well where Aadam had a steadier hold of the camera and he could zoom in and out at the correct moments. We didn’t use a tripod during these times because the tripod wasn’t that effective during them moments so we just decided to use it as hand held. We filmed and saved the clips on the camera after we finished the filming; we edited the film on the Mac pc and put the clips together on final cut pro on the college Mac pc and also in one of our group members home computer because he also had access to final cut pro. Using final cut pro was a bit difficult, we hadn’t used it before and it was the first time for me and my group members. We learnt the basic of final cut pro in lessons for example how to cut the clips and use the part of the footage we need, we also knew how to move the clips around and add specific effects to the footage like slow motion or fast pace, we also learnt how to make the footage more lighter and dreamier for the day dream scene even though a lot of help was given by the technician, another feature that we learnt was how to put in sound in the timeline. My contribution on the editing part was most of the editing part although Aadam and Akik chipped in with ideas. I and Akik did share the role of editing however I did take the role on more than Akik as he was the director of the film. We also used photo shop for making the movie poste. Using Photoshop was hard to use as it was very technical and there was a lot to learn in little time. Although we had to use Photoshop last year we still didn’t remember how to use it as much as we did because we hadn’t used it for a long time. However we were fortunate enough to have friends within the media course to help us in using photo shop. They taught us how to change the tone of the image more desirable according to how we wanted it. And they showed us how to make the day dream bubbles in the movie poster and how to put a glow behind it, apart from that the rest was all of our ideas. We would play around with the features until it was right. I and Akik took the role of making the movie poster on Photoshop and Aadam took the responsibility of making the movie review on Indesign. We also needed to make a Prezzi for the print products to find out audience feedback. And overall using Prezzi was easy and simple to use because we have used it many times before.

Question Three Prezzi

Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We had two focus groups and during the first pre-production focus groups we showed our plans for the short film and both print products, movie poster and review. In the first focus group majority of the class approved our ideas and they favoured the way we wanted to build our print products and short film. However we received a suggestion from the audience regarding the amount of stereotypes which we were intending to use. Therewere too many stereotypes included within our short film. Initially we intended to have an African, English and Indian stereotype within our film. The English stereotype would be when he is dressed all smart and tries to act English and professional in public to try and fit in due to the reason he is from another country the English stereotype would be portrayed in his smart wear dressing. We also wanted him have a bubbly and live character and this would be an African stereotype. We wanted him to be loud as some African stereotypes suggest. Lastly the Indian stereotype would be used in the day dream which he has on the train where he sees the beautiful girl. In the day dream the Indian stereotype comes in the day dream where they dance with each other and act overly romantic as most Indian films have in their scenes. We also included a romantic Indian song in the background to show that we used Indian stereotypes during that scene. However as said before a member of the class believed that there was too many stereotypes being used and that this will cause confusion to the audience. so my group and me all pondered over the feedback we received and came to a decision that we’ll take out a stereotype because later on we realised that they were right and having too many stereotypes would create difficulty for us and it might be too much for the audience they might not understand it.

On our second focus group we displayed to the classroom our print products, our short film poster and our magazine review. The classroom showed to us that they liked how everything looked and they thought there were many aspects within our magazine review and movie poster which they liked. In our movie poster they said that they likedthe splashes in the movie poster, they thought it was eye catching and the way the splashes include some important parts in the film, it acts like a taster to the audience by seeing these splashes they would be interested in seeing the film so it grabs audience's attention. They also liked how we used bits of features from our case studies and how the features we tried to use clearly showed on our poster. The splashes were one of the features we tried to use and we got this feature from our east is east, we also wanted the film name to be underneath the main image as though he is standing on it and we also got this from east is east. Mr Bean was another case study which we used. In the Mr Bean movie poster, his main character shows a funny pose which match with the comedy which the audience will see in the film and we were very much aspired by this technique so we used it and the feedback we received about this was that it was successful. Another one of our case studies was west is west, and we loved the tag line which was used in the movie poster ‘same family different country’ and we wanted to use the same order of the phrase. We wanted to have ‘same Monty different country’ in our own movie poster and the feedback we received was that some of them thought that it did work and that it made sense, so they didn’t mind the tag line they thought it was fine however others believed that the tagline didn’t make sense because ‘same Monty different country’ means that the audience have seen him before and there is a sequence of films in which he stars in where as this is the first time we see him in a film, so some of the feedback we received was that it didn’t make sense, so me and my group again thought over it and at the end we changed the tag line to ‘are you ready London its… Monty’s day out’ we thought this was much better so we were pleased.

In relation to the movie review, we hadn’t finished making it when we presented the pitch to the class so we just elaborated on our ideas. And the main focus of the movie review was about the still image that we were going to use. And we wanted to use more than one image in our review as we found in our research most of the reviews have more than one still image for example the movie review on Skyfall had more than one image. So the class thought this was fine to use but when the teacher asked what was the most memorable part of the film they suggested the scene where he is eating the biscuit because it was really funny and the part where the main character Monty was with the girl. Initially we wanted to use this still image but once we put it up it didn’t look like a comedy genre it looked more like a romantic film so we changed it and decided to put up a still image of where he looks really confused and where his looking straight at the security guards when he reaches the olympic games. this seems like his looking straight at the audience. so this will build a fake relationship with the audience thus getting them to carry on reading.

Question Two SlideShare

Question Two

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

Our two print products and film all correspond with each other according to various features like the themes, content, house style, imagery, tone / language.

Firstly according to the themes throughout the 3 main products they all have a comedy genre aspect to it. In the movie poster we used an image of him with a weird and funny face looking out of a window this would relate to the comedy theme. The font used for the title of the film 'Monty' in the movie poster is cartoonist and relates to a comedy genre. Similarly the image and the font used in the review also show the comedy theme. For the review we used a still image of him eating a biscuit, where bits of the biscuit came out of his mouth and we wanted to use this because it would suggest a comedy theme. Lastly there is also a comedy theme on the short film by the expressions and behavior of Monty the main character and also through other various scenes like when he gets slapped on the train or when he dances in the day dream. There is also a theme of love in our short film when he falls in love with the girl whom he meets on the train. And we show this love theme on the movie poster as well by having a day dream bubble coming out of the main images head with a hot pink background connoting love and lust. We also portrayed a love theme in the movie review by having a still image of him having a picnic with the girl whom he met on the train.

Secondly the house style is also the same throughout our three main products because of the font and colour schemes that we used are similar in all three products. For example in our movie poster the colour scheme is orange and black. We used this house style as it connoted a bubbly and comedy vibe so we decided to use this throughout all of our products. We also used this font in our short film, when the title of the film is introduced during the first few seconds of the film; we used the same font and colour scheme. So there is a similar combination of the same style of text and its layout being played there. However in our review we wanted to make it different and classier. We wanted to make the film look professional and for this reason we tried using a more formal font in the review rather than the cartoonist font which we did in the movie poster and short film.

The content of the three main products is also similar they all consist of the main character being the main image of the film. Because the film is mostly about him and about the weird things he does we thought he should be the main attraction so this is why we kept him in the review and poster.

The imagery used is also the same in all three products because we wanted to use pictures that we would use in our products to be funny and give a short insight about what the film is about, and that after they look at the two print products they'll know it's something comedy based so for this reason we chose images that we thought were most funny in our film. In our movie poster we chose an image of him looking out the window and in our review we chose an image of him eating something in a strange way. This is the correspondence between both images they both consist of the main character making a fool out of himself, thus making it more obvious that our genre is comedy.

The movie poster promotes the video product because firstly the colour scheme is really bright and would catch the reader's attention. The main image used is funny looking and unusual so the audience would want to know what the story is about. The poster is also laid out professionally and looks neat and tidy so this makes the film look classier. Our review acts as a promotional artifact because it grabs the reader's attention mainly through the main still image used this image is weird looking and the audience would want know what the film is all about. In relation to how we would promote this film further is by creating a movie trailer for the film so that we can grab the audience towards the film. We would also like to open up Monty toys and also clothes wear like T- shirts etc so that this could promote our main character and the film. We could open up a Monty cartoon series the way Mr Bean has so that this still promotes the actual film and by watching the cartoon unknown viewers would want to know what the real Monty is about so they'd want to watch the real film and this could help promote the film.

Question One SpiderScribe