Kalams Blog : March 2013

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

Question One

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

Our media products use forms and conventions of real media products. Firstly in the short film we wanted to make our film similar to Mr Bean according to Camera, Mise-en-scene, Editing and Sound. However for the print products we did look at other case studies like East is east and four lions. In most of the Mr Beans clips which we viewed on YouTube as part of our research and planning we noticed that in relation to camera work, he mainly the main focus on the camera and there is a mostly mid to long shot of him to show his attitude and behaviour because Mr Bean is about a guy who does a lot of slapstick comedy and physical humour which makes the comedy of the film and we wanted our film to be like this and we wanted our main character to be more or less the same as Mr Bean and for this reason we mostly used mid to long shots as well to make the audience see his physical humour for example at the beginning of the scene when we build the main character up by showing only the bottom half of his body and then when he comes into the train we pan the camera to a mid shot and show the upper part of his body. We did a mid shot of this to show his body language and his facial expression. We also used a long shot of our main character to show the people around him and their reaction as this could also show comedy. In Mr Bean we found a lot of long shots of him to show his surroundings and the scene clearer and we also used this shot in our film. When he comes out of the stations at Stratford he walks through a bunch of people as it is a busy area and we wanted to have this as a long shot to show the people the reaction of the people around him and this connote that he is actually from another country and is foreign. Mr Bean also uses close ups on his face to see his facial expression, Mr Beans facial expression is brilliant and he makes comedy through his appearance and physical behaviour and he doesn't talk much so he would need to use a lot of facial expression in order to show to the audience what is going on and for this reason close ups would be required, we thought this was a very key shot to use so we used close ups to show facial expression and we also zoomed in to a close up to show his facial expression for example when he gets slapped on the train by the girl because the girl thinks he is perving on her she slaps him and we zoom into a close up shot to show his facial expressions. We also used a point of view shot to show what the main character is seeing, for example when he is having a day dream he looks at the girl when he trips while they are skipping to their picnic area and the camera looks at the girl from Monty's point of view shot. We couldn't see many shots of this in our case studies but we used this to be more original and unique. Our film consists of a romantic scene which challenges forms of real comedy media products and especially our main case study Mr Bean because his films area mostly about comedy and nothing else but we portrayed comedy scenes and also a romantic scene so we were being original and different in that sense in relation to our main case study.

In terms of Mise-en-scene and Sound we also tried to follow these features in our films the way shown in real media products and we tried following there forms and convention. In our main case study Mr Bean he is dressed smart and he looks really formal because of his suite, tie and shirt he even carries a bag around looking like some sort of business men but even when he is dressed smart he still looks funny because of how his trousers are you can see his entire socks. And we wanted this in our main character. we realised from this that even though the main character should have a funny physical attitude to him the audience should find it funny even by looking at him just by his dressing and for this reason he made our main character wear a beige colour blazer, red tie, dark blue trousers and also a white shirt similar to the character of Mr Bean however we developed this convention by having our main character wear a sun hat to show that he is in holiday from another country, we made sure that he also had a back pack and not a formal bag, a backpack to show as if his going to a picnic of some sort. We even made our main character put the end of his trousers into his socks to make it even funnier. This was quite unusual to see in a character and so for this reason we thought it would be perfect for our character because he is acting weird in the comedy sense throughout the film just like Mr Bean. In terms of our locations we varied it according to the settings we needed to fit out story line. Our films story was about a man who tries to get to the Olympics and is new to the country and so we decided to set this in Stratford where the Olympics took place and we even used a location of a big field for our romantic scene and we followed this convention from our case study on the romantic scene on the romantic Indian song 'thuje dekha tho yeh jaana saanam' and in that case study the video is taking place in a big field to show make it romantic with trees and nature around to give a soft and loving atmosphere to the audience and so we used this convention and also set our romantic scene in a big massive field with a stream of water passing by underneath a bridge to make the scene look more realistic in the idea that it is an romantic scene. The sound that we used was also that music track and we played it in the background of that scene to make it scene more like a romantic moment and a common Indian day dream and we wanted to implement an Indian stereotype in our film and this is where we used it so we decided to use a Indian song for this. We also used a 'bhangra drum' tune to go at the beginning of the film when the audience haven't met the main character Monty yet only the bottom half and this was because firstly we wanted to build up suspense and wanted the audience to feel a bit impatience to know who the character and we thought the drums could help do this and also because the drums relates back to the idea that he is from a foreign area Pakistan and has landed into a British country so the beat could reflect back on his culture and the audience could see that he is from an Asian country. A lot of editing was done in order to give the film continuity. At the beginning of the film we used fast cut shots to build the mystery of who the character is because during them scenes only the legs were shown of the character and the whole body hasn't been introduced and for this reason we edited the shots to a fast rate. We also slowed down the speed of the camera when the girl walks up towards him on the train and we placed a slow track behind it as well to make it seem as though his fell in love and his breath has been taken away by this beautiful girl which then leads to him having a day dream. When the day dream appears the shot fades out and the shot goes lighter, to make it seem more of a misty effect of a day dream. during the day dream the edges of the day dream scene was not clear and fuzzy to give the idea that this scene is not real and is taking place in his head. To make it seem as though he is thinking about it in his head and it is not actually taking place in real life.

We also followed todorovs theory of a clear narrative structure with a beginning, middle and end. At the beginning of the film he comes into the country and is new to England, his really excited about the Olympics and he can't wait to get there. In the middle of the narrative he is on the train and meets this beautiful girl whom he falls in love with and has a day dream about, he suddenly comes back to life after she slaps him whilst calling him a perv. Lastly he gets to the Olympics however his ticket is out of date and he can't believe it, so we ended the narrative with a sad ending.

Our poster did follow the main conventions of a comedy movie poster. Again we completed our movie poster using a mixture of forms and conventions from three separate case studies. Our main case study for the movie poster however was Mr Bean. We liked the way the main character in this case study was the only and main focus in the poster and this was because he is the character with the leading role. He poses in a funny pose portraying the genre of the film and the audience could see that this is a comedy film so we wanted to use this and like this the most about those case studies so we decided to use it in our case study as well. We placed a picture of Monty in a funny pose and thus displaying the main character and also connoting the genre of the film. The shot type of the main image in Mr Bean the case study was a long shot, ideally we wanted to do the same shot however we couldn't because we couldn't find a suitable image for this so we just kept the main image to a close up. From east is east case study we liked how the characters were standing on the title and also liked the use of the stars displayed in the case study in which each star had a name of the director, producer and other people's name who took part in the making of the film. And we wanted to use this in our case study as well. So we placed the title underneath the main image to make it like his standing on it however we had to change the image into a picture of his face only because we couldn't find any other picture that would be best for the main image of the [poster and so we couldn't implement this convention in our own poster. On the other hand the other convention we intended to place in the poster regarding the stars we did implement and was successful however we developed this convention into bubbles that were coming out of his head to make it seem like he was thinking about them thoughts. The bubbles were a picture of the girl and the Olympics, two main topics of the film and his pose in the main image also looks like his thinking about something or as if his received an idea so the two conventions does work. Lastly we also saw in one of our other case studies that the tag line was rather interesting it said 'same family different country' and this case study was west is west where there is a sequel in which the film takes part in. We wanted to use the tagline in the same structure but just different words we wanted to initially use 'same Monty different country' however the teacher thought that this would not fit well as our film was not a sequel and west is west, where we got the tagline from was, and for this reason it won't make sense in our film. overall we did place all the features in which a professional movie poster would have, i.e. the title, the website, the age rate, the quotes, the tagline, the main image, the producer of the film, the date in which the film is issued as well. We also followed the colour scheme in our movie poster as we did in the film as well and the colour scheme was black orange and yellow, where the orange was the most dominant colour because it connoted a bubbly and lively attitude just like our main character Monty. The title 'MONTYS DAY OUT' is written in a way in which it shows the genre of the film because the name Monty is written in a comedy and cartoonist way to connote the behaviour of the character which is funny and full of life. And the day out is in white to make it stand out and grab the reader's attention and by having it bold and eye catching you immediately get the idea that something is definitely going to go wrong in Monty's day out and this is what we intended to connote through this. The font of the rest of the writing in the poster is also cartoony and isn't really a serious font type but more of a informal kind to connote the genre of the film.

Our movie review also follows conventions of real media products because firstly the image that we used is a still image of him looking at the security guards and this is a long shot. We used this image because it clearly defines the character monty, which is innocent and confused due to the reason he has just arrived in a country he doesnt know about. Secondly it also explaines the genre of the film using this image which is comedy because his glare is over exagerated and funny.The way in which the Monty is posing in the main image of the review it seems like he is staring at the readers and this could help grab the readers into the film because he looks at them dirrectly, through this he also seems like his present infront of them because of the his using eye contact. The movie review also includes conventions in which real conventions would use for example the star rating, a tag line, the date the review was issued and by who it was issued, it also includes seperate other conventions like who the film stars i.e the director and producer. This stands out from the rest of the text to help grab the readers attention and so if they see the names who directed or produced the film they might want to read on because they know who the director or producer is. We have also made a 'verdict' box which act as a warning box that helps to grab the readers attention and we have found this in a case study called 'the kite runner' and they also try and advertise the film through this 'verdict box' use, and we thought this was an interesting technique to use, because we could use it to sell the film and advertise it so that the audience feel eagered to know more about the film. Note that the film name 'Monty's day out' is written in a different colour to the colour it had in the film poster and we have found this technique being used also in 'The Kite Runner' review, so this also shows that we are following conventions of real media product. We had to keep this colour because the background of the review was white and we had to keep the film name there so we just changed the colour and we found this being used in another case study. As many reviews have a page number, the magazines name and the date at the bottom of the review we have also kept this in our film review and by having lines in between each to separate them it looks professional, we also found this being used in the review 'the kite runner'.

Monday, 4 March 2013

Survey Monkey

Today we have gone through what we have recently done through out the course. looking out for anything that we might have missed. and one thing that the teacher told us to make was a survey on a website called surveymonkey.com in which we can get feedback from others about our film in relation to camera, mise-en-scene, sound and editing. the survey will conclude of 8 questions and we choose our own questions so we had to make sure we were asking the right and correct questions, things that we needed to find out was whether the short film, moie poster and review works as a package and other things like what was the best feature about the film etc.

This is the official site in which we made the survey.

this is one of the questions that we put up on the survey

Friday, 1 March 2013

Focus group 2