What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

The audience is the main reason as to why my short film was made. If there was no audience, the short film would have no purpose or meaning. Besides this, if there was no audience, then the short film would not have any views or sales, meaning it wouldn't be a success. The bigger the audience, the more chance there is of it having more recognition and revenue as people will be discussing how good it is with others and influncing them to go and watch it.
When specifing the target audience for my short film, I followed the acroymn of SAGEL which my media teacher made up. This consists of Socio-economic group, Age, Gender, Ethnicity and Lifestyle. In a blog post, near the start of my blog, I have made a detailed post on my target audience and the one I will be aiming my short film for.
A B D U C T is aimed towards people aged 12 to 50 and I have aimed it for males and females as each gender acquire different tastes and my short film can be suited for both. I have aimed my short film for those in working and middle class mainly however anyone is welcome to watch; this was hard to put a defined label of what class it is aimed for. The ethinicty is white-British as the film is produced and published in Britian so there is more chance of white-British people watching it.

To help complete this evaluation, Sophie and myself devised a questionnaire which we gave to our focus group   to fill in while watching our short film. Besides this, I thought that by creating a questionnaire, it would allow me to find out what it good about our film and what things need improving. A photgraph from all of the responses are copied below so you can see what questions were asked and the responses given.

We found that by creating this, it would give us indepth detail about their opinions on my short film. As you can see, the questions used in the questionnaire are opened and closed and provide us with quantitative and qualitative details. Question 4 has used flow of emotion. This addresses how the audience felt while watching the short film - by asking this kind of question, it enabled us to know the feelings in which our film portrayed and the way it made the audience feel.

 

As you can see from the pictures that I have scanned in from the questionnaire, all of my target audience enjoyed watching the short film; this was for several reasons. These ranged from the flow of emotion which the film portrayed; this was mainly the suspense and anticipation conveyed through the action, the build up of the main event, the variety of camera shots used and the scene which was shot in the gravegard. These points highlighted are all good, positive factors which is something that Sophie and myself wanted to achieve during the creation of my short film.
Question 3 identifies all of the feelings that we wanted the film to show. The list shows that the focus group mainly felt on edge, anxious, worried and scared when watching ABDUCT. This feedback is very good to recieve as it meant I had been successful in achieving the feelings in which we wanted to portray. Besides this, it could also help to demonstrate the short films success as these feelings are shown when it comes to watching a film in the thriller genre.
Question 4 poses as an open question which allows us to get in depth information about what areas of the film made the audience feel the feelings that they ticked. As you can see from the screenshots, the feelings were mainly achieved when Lily was getting followed and stalked by George, the cemetry scenes and the last scene when Lily was struggling for her life. This is also positive feedback for me as these areas are the key points in which I wanted the audience to feel anxious or scared for whats about to happen, and to build up tension and anticipation.
Question 5 is asking if they thought the story line was successful with the short film. Every applicannt said it worked well however one commented about the sharp ending. We took this on board and after, told them that the reason for this is that the talent has a close relationship as being student and teachers and that it was hard to portray a voilent scene (of the killing) as it would have been unprofessional as well as uncomfortable for the actress and actor.
Question 6 asks about the improvements we could make about the camera work, mise en scene, editing and sound. A lot of the respondants said that the production was good and that there was a range of camerawork angles which worked well to create tension. However one applicant commented about the jump cut and how it didn't really work well as it was an individual. This will help us in the future as we will know how to edit them in next time.
Question 7 was asking how they liked the grim ending or if they would of prefered a happy one. Most responses were positive, by saying it worked well with the rest of the content of the film and that it left them to imagine what happened to the girl. However one person said that by having a happy ending, it would have changed all of the dynamics to the short film; this is very true and it would change the flow of emotion and the meaning of the short film.
Question 8 asks for their personal rating of the film out of 5 stars. 6 people rated it 4 out of 5 stars which is very satisfying and something to make us proud of what we created, however one applicant rated it 5 out of 5 which is exceptional and I am very pleased that I can create a film that they are happy with and enjoy.

From watching my short film back several times, I thought it was best to make some improvements to the editing. This was also influenced by the feedback I recieved from the questionnaires. In one of the scenes, the editing is a bit jilted, so I removed that section in order for it to play more smoothly. I also noticed that there was not an effect on one of the scenes in which the others in that sequence has one. I altered this in order to it have a successful effect on the audience.

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

How did you use media technologies in the from zoerichardson

As you can see from the presentation above, I have used a wide range of technologies throughout the process of my coursework task. I have thoroughly enjoyed using them as the have made the work get done effectively and efficiently as all technology was quick and easy to get hold of and use. The school provided most of the equipment which was very benefical as it meant I didn't have to buy any for the task. Besides this, it was all of a good standard which meant they produced good quality work.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillarytexts?

When it came to creating the ancillary tasks myself and Sophie assigned each other with the film review page and poster. This enabled us to get them done efficiently and have more time to focus on the editing of our short film. We both worked and completed them in lesson time so we could share ideas and discuss appropriate pictures and layout in order to keep the house style consistent.
It was very important that I stuck to consistency through the main task and the anciliary tasks as I wanted them to look realistic and professional as well as being appropriate to our target audience. Sophie created the film poster and I created the magazine film review page.

The image on the left is the poster of the short film.

The image on the left is the magazine film review page of the short film.

House Style
As you can see from both of the anciliary tasks above, they look very similar - this was the main aim of Sophie and myself. When we was creating these, we wanted to make sure that they were both consistent and show clear similarities with the short film.
We achieved this by maintaining the same house style throught all three tasks. A house style is the design, layout, colour, fonts etc which are used to make things look related and I felt that this was the easiest way to portray links between each task.
In the poster and the magazine film review page, the main colour scheme is black, white and red. These colours have been chosen as they are dull and portray negative emotions. This reinforces the story plot in 'A B D U C T' as it is very dismal in the sense of unnerving storyline. However the use of the colour red can portray two meanings. The main feeling I wanted to portray through this colour was danger and the actress being in a jepordising position. In constrast to this I also wanted this colour to add a bit of fire to the poster as it makes it look more exciting and would encourage the audience to think that something dramatic is going to happen in it. Similarly, it would be more exhilirating in order to convey the tension and suspense of the film. For the film poster Sophie has used the colour red for these reasons, however in the review page, I have decided to stick to the colour white for all of the font. This is because they are both used for different media purposes - the poster is used to capture attention and make the film look appealing and enticing to the target audience, and it has to look as if there is something mysterious behind it. The magazine review page is for an informative overview about the film. I should have stuck with the red tag line to remain consistent, however I feel by sticking to the white font throughout, it would make it look more professional and would work better with the black background.
The colour of the title has printed in white because as I feel this is a very clear, eye catching colour - the fact I have printed it in bold makes it more appealing and works very well on the black background; this can be known WOB (white on black). The colour white can also be considered as an empty colour which could show connotations of Lilly's empty heart due to her father passing away and her no longer being alive. I think the black background of the review page works very well with the poster as the colour black features on both and highlights the idea that ABDUCT is a thriller and quite a saddening film. I wanted to connote the idea that it is not a happy short film yet at the same time, it being quite sophisticated due to black being a sleek colour.

Logos have been used at the bottom of the film poster to make it look more conventional to other film posters. This also helps to make it look mor professional and accurate of a real film poster. It looks realisitc as they are real company logos. This could help promote our film poster, as the company logos such a 'PARAMOUNT' and 'FILM4' could help the target audience and others outside of the focus group to become more interested in my short film if they are fans of 'Paramount' films or those which get shown on 'Film4'.
On the magazine film review page, I have inserted my own logo for a magazine film review page. As I wanted it to look realistic and conventional to other review pages, I created my own so the target readers were aware that this is the section of the magazine which talks about film reviews. I have placed this in the top left hand corner on the right page as it is out of the way in that area and isn't taking up any room that is needed for text. Beside it, I have added a small picture of a film camera; this adds a visual for the readers to look at and makes the review page look more suited for a magazine which is targeted at my focus group.
Text boxes have been used in the poster and the review page as they are far more easier to insert and maneuver the text around the page in order to see where it works best. When it came to writing the film magazine review page I decided to write the content of the review in columns as I feel that this will look conventional to a normal film review page. Another convention I have used of a review page is the drop cap letter which is shown at the start of the text. This helps to make the review page look more professional and will allow the target reader to know that the article starts there.
Text boxes have been used in the film poster as they help to separate text and also alowed Sophie to position them in the best place possible. As you can see from the description at the nottom of the film poster, a lot of text boxes were used to split up all of the lines of text. This helped her to make the lines fit in closer together and also allowed her to catergorise each line in terms of producer, director, talent etc names.
I have included a film review rating at the bottom of the review. At first, I rated the film 4 stars as a draft, however once I had gained the results from the questionnaire, I viewed how many stars the target audience would rate it. The overall ranking came back as 4 stars so no alterations needed to be made to this area. The reason as to why I waited for the responses is to keep the details and information of the short film and anciliary tasks consistent.
The use of ellipsis has been used at the end of the tag lines as it is used to make the audience feel a sense of anticipation for what is going to happen. I think this is very good use of punctuation as it has a long lasting effect and creates a deeper meaning of the tag line.
Music
Even though you may not be able to see it, the music which I have used on the build up of the short film ties in with the mood and feelings created by the poster and the magazine film review page. The music is quite sollum and depressing which is reinforced in the house style of the anciliary tasks by the dull and miserable colours.
Camerawork
We chose to have mid shots as the main background image in both of the anciliary task documents as we feel that these work best with the content and give the audience a good insight for what is in the film. I feel that using mid shots as the background image, it gives the audience enough detail to see what is happening in the shot; this is mainly done by the mise en scene. In the film poster, you see the killer in a shadow which conveys he is trouble. He wears a long black mac throughout the film, however due to the mid shot, you cannot see the lenght. The black mac can portray ideas of death and can raises concern. This is a convention of the film 'Nosferatu'. Even though this is a vampire horror film, the antagonist is wearing a long black coat and there is a scene of him walking up the stairs just showing his silhouette on the wall (see the picture below). We have created a very similar scene when George, the killer in 'ABDUCT' is walking up the stairs getting ready to kill Lily. Sophie chose to use this image of George walking up the stairs as it sticks to convetions of other similar films while it creates a mysterious feeling about what he is walking up the stairs to.
In the magazine film review page, you can see the victim with masking tape strapped across her mouth, preventing her from speaking. This helps to give them an insight that see is in danger and being prevented for speaking. This could enable to the audience to want to discover why this is the case and therefore be intrigued to what happens.

By having a sequence of disturbing images it helps to show concordance with the short film as it is based on a negative topic.The background images have been lifted from the short film. I have decided to use original shots instead of taking new ones dedicated especially to the anciliary tasks as it saved a lot of time and we already had suitable images to use.

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

In the presentation above, I have embedded the trailer of 'The Lovely Bones' as all of the key conventional shots are shown in it. Also in the presentation, I have talked about all the conventions which I have used, challenged and developed in my short film. For this task I have been a media decoder as i have analysed and deconstructed existing media texts; this allowed me to highlight the typical conventions. Below I have extracted image from 'The Lovely Bones' and compared them to images from 'A B D U C T' in order for clear conventions to be shown. Besides 'The Lovely Bones' there are other films such as 'Cupcake' - a short thriller film and 'The Accidental Witness' - a thriller film.
Both of these films also show typical conventions of a thriller and helped me to understand and follow conventions for my short film.

This is a picture of George Harvey, the killer, when he has his sights fixed on the young couple in the field. Even though he is not watching Susie at this time, it shows that he has still got cruel ways and could suggest that he is watching them, for them to be his next victim. However I have chosen this photo as it portrays the pedophile killers fixed gaze when he sees someone/thing he wants. He has a smug look on his face with suggests ideas he is planning something nasty to do and seems happy that he has found a new victim.

I have tired to imitate this look with our actor as I think this is a good way to show his sinister ways and make him look more disturbed. Next to the picture of George Harvey is the actor in our film who plays the role of a pedophile killer.

Below, on the left, is the image of George Harvey when he is watching Susie's sister. The dark shadow helps to reinforce his dark and disturbed ways. There is a single ray of light which shines across his eyes which emphasises that he has his sights fixed on someone once again. 

The image in the middle, is taken from the thriller/detective film 'The Accidental Witness'. As you can see, the actor has the girl he is planning to kill is in his sights and he has a fixed gaze on her.

Similarly, the image in at the bottom, is the one I shot of our actor when he has spotted the girl he wants as his next victim. His devilish eye contact on the girl allows the audience to know what he is thinking and enables them to get an idea of what is about to happen. This seems to be a typical convention of this genre of film therefore thats the reason as to why I have stuck to it.

                                                                                          

As mentioned in the presentation we wanted to stick to conventions of this film, so we set the opening scene in school to make the mise en scene flow and to make the story line more established. Below, on the left, is the print screen of the school scene in 'The Lovely Bones'. The shot of the school is a high angle shot which could reinforce the age of the girl and also it could suggest ideas that she is still developing and growing up in the education criteria. Also suggesting that she has her whole life ahead of her; this helps to build on the sympathy of the relationship which the audience have with Susie. 

Below, on the right, is the image that I created of the school scene. I chose to incorporate this into the start of the short film as it will help to set the scene and inform the audience on the age of Lilly. I have used a wide shot to film the school scene as I felt is was a good way to capture all features which I wanted to include, such as the students of Southfield School, the Southfield School sign and Lilly and her friend leaving school. 

                                                                                          

At the beginning of 'The Lovely Bones' trailer, there is a mid shot of Susie and her mother laying on the bed looking happy and content. This is shown in the image on the left. I liked this shot because it helped to emphasis how happy Susie is and how loved she is within her family. This would help to build the relationship with the auidence as it makes her look more innocent and angelic.

The image on the right is from my short film 'A B D U C T'. I have tried to portray the same emotions and feelings to what the image on the left does. To help create this I had done a mid shot of Lilly and her friend smiling and hugging each other after school. This will help to show the audience that Lilly is a normal school girl who is oblivious to her surroundings.

 

                                                                                           

In the film 'The Lovely Bones' Susie portrays a look on her face when she spots George looking perculia in the field. This is the image on the left. From this expression we are able to tell that Susie thinks something isn't right and becomes concerned about it. I thought this was a good mid shot to feature as it supplies the audience with indepth knowledge about her thoughts.
The mid shot in the middle is my imitation of this shot. Here, you see Lilly with a worried look on her face as she feels like she can her strange noises or an unseen presence. She turns and looks around however she doesn't spot anything. I think this conventional shot is very effective because you feel anxcious for Lilly to find out that something is actually there watching her however she still remains oblivious.















Similarly this image (on the left) is from the short film 'Cupcake'. As you can see the actress in it is showing a terrified face as she first see's what is soon to be her killer. This frightened looked on each of the actresses faces portrays ideas that this is a conventional theme for thriller genres.

                                                                                          

As you can see from these three images on the left, focus on the door seems to be a conventional feature. The top high angle shot is from 'The Lovely Bones' where George comes in through the door to sense that someone is in the house. The second image is from 'Cupcake' and the low angle of the door insinuates that trouble is about to occur as that is where the girl is tied up, waiting to be killed. The bottom mid shot is from my short film 'A B D U C T'. I have decided to stick to this convention because I feel that it conveys the idea that danger is coming and the audience know to get ready for the drama.









                                                                                          

The image on the left is from the short film 'Cupcake'. I feel this was a good close up to have I thinks it makes the film seem more personal and in a sense, realistic due to its a real human who is about to get killed.
Below is the close up Lillys hand from 'A B D U C T' on her dads grave. I think this shot makes it more personal as it shows an emotional connection between Lilly and her dad. This can help build the relationship between the actress and the audience.

                                                                                          

The close up image to the left is taken from 'Cupcake'. It isn't even clear to see as it is a jump cut and happens very quickly, however it is of the actress shaking her hands, trying to loosen the rope.

Similarly, the close up below is from 'A B D U C T'. I have decided to imitate this convention as I feel is enhancing the audiences knowledge of what is happening and increases the anticipation as to whether the victim will get loose or not.

                                                                                         

 The close up image on the left is of the actress in 'Cupcake' who has been tied up and had duck taped strapped across her mouth to stop her from speaking. I thought this was very effective because you can see the pain and distress she is in. This will help to built the emotional bond with the audience.



 I thought this is a very good and a conventional shot so I wanted to incorporate it into my short film. I have put masking tape across Lilly's mouth and tied her up with blue rope. I felt this would make the audience feel anxious for Lilly and would hope that she escaped safely.

                                                       

Other media conventions which I followed is mise en scene.
The symbolic code of the actor wearing the long black mac is a very conventional feature. In the post above, evaluation 3, you can see an image of 'Nosferatu' which shows similar connotations of the black mac.

 
















 Another convention which I typically followed was using a linear structure as the narrative to my short film. In comparison to other films in the thriller/drama genre, most of the films have a linear structure which has a beginning, middle and end. Besides this, there are also elements of open structure which is shown in other films in this genre where the audience are sometimes left to work out what happens for themselves.

Evaluations

Below are the questions we have to answer for the evaluation part of the task.


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

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

"What have you learned from your audience feedback?"

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

Genre

In class, we have been studing genre, its meaning and theories which explain why genre is important. In the presentation below, you will see all of the main media genre theorists and how their theory applies to my short film 'ABDUCT'.

Genre theories from zoerichardson

Narrative

When it comes to thinking about the narrative of my short film, it is most important to decide on the structure in which I want the story line to follow.
Structure
After having a discussion with Sophie about this, we thought it was best to use a linear structure as it would allow us to make the short film more successful based around our skills. As we were both new to media at the start of the Alevel course, we did not know anything about the creation of a short film. By creating a linear structure, we thought it would be easier creating one based on this as it made most sense to use and we had already thought about a good story line which would fit this.
When looking back on my short film, it also features open structure in some areas as the audience as left to think for themselves about what happens. This features in the final scene where Lily dies. Due to the relationship between the talent, we could not show any sort of voilence or sexual scenes, so we decided to apply a voiceover which said "and thats when I died". This enabled the auidence to know that the killer, George, did actually kill her and she unfortunatley died. From this, it allows the audience to imagine for themselves, the way in which he killed her.
Narrative
Over the years, the complexity of the narrative of media texts has increased. Media texts, such as films, now expect you to know what is going on in the film, without neccessarly telling you the plot. This has become the norm of films and Sophie and myself decided to stick to this convention and not reveal all about our plot. Two features within the narrative are unrestricted narrative and restricted narrative. The unrestricted narrative in our film is evident as there is a killing at the end of the short film. This is expected in thrillers and therefore the audience will subconciously presume that there will be one featuring in my short film. The restricted narrative is evident at some stages of my short film as I do not inform my focus group that Lily's father has died before hand and that's why she visits the grave. This should, however, become clear when she goes to visit his gravestone after school. After factor which isn't directly shown in the short film is that George waits for Lily everyday after school and stalks her to the graveyard, reassuring her route and that it is a daily occurance.

There are many theories that have been conducted which can support films narrative.

Barthes
Barthes is a very popular narrative study which has been created to support the idea that to understand a narrative, a producer must follow codes which help the audience pick up the plot to a film/short film. These 5 codes are:

1. Action code - something that the audience knows and doesn't need explaining.
2. Enigma code - something that is hidden from the audience.
3. Semic code - something the audience can notice through connotations.
4. Symbolic code - something that symbolises something abstract.
5. Referential code - something that happens within a culture and is understood.

Barthes theory is the most suited to my short film and its narrative so therefore I fully agree with it.

1. Action code - the audience knows that George is the disturbed peadophile.
2. Enigma code - the audience are unaware that the father has died beforehand.
3. Semic code -
4. Symbolic code -
5. Referential code - that Lily goes to school everyday as this is the norm in most countries, especially England.

As you can see above, all of the 5 codes are met, which fully supports Barthes theory. In turn this should make the audience fully aware of whats happening at all times and make the narrative and plot of the short film succesful.

ODOROV
Odorov also created a very popular theory which explains the sequence in which a narrative should and does follow in. It is conducted of 5 steps which are listed below:

1. Equilibrium - everyday life.
2. Disruption - something happens to alter the equilibrium.
3. Conflict  - trying to solve the problem.
4. .Resolution - problem is sorted.
5. New Equilibriun - back to normal.

When looking at my short films narrative, it is clear to see that some of the steps of this theory is met, however not all are achieved.

1. Equilibrium - you see Lily coming out of school which is something that occurs every week.
2. Disruption - as Lily gets kidnapped this alters the equilibrium.

The other three factors of conflict, resolution and new equilibrium do not get met with the narrative of my short film so this contradicts the theory as it doesn't apply and therefore the theory could be seen as in accurate. However this theory may not fit my short film due to the genre being a thriller - this could be different with other genres.