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

The internet gave access to a full range of short films that are not produced in the mainstream media. This was thanks to websites such as You Tube and i-player. This provided us with the unique opportunity to draw inspiration from numerous sources and a wide range of short films - without the internet this would have been technically impossible. The amount of short films on You Tube is immense and they vary hugely, meaning that we were never short of inspiration if we needed it.  We could gain a lot of information from researching things like the genres and themes among others. Going to libraries and buying magazines and then analysing them for the required info would be unpractical due to time and financial constraints. The internet was especially useful in terms of researching our poster as we had access to a large amount of examples that could be easily found and used.

The blog was really helpful to us as we could document every stage of our research and planning and whenever we needed to, we could go back to it. In addition we could add in different multimedia such as videos and pictures in order to enhance our research and planning. This is also useful as it helps in organising and presenting research in a form that helps in gaining feedback from my partner in the group.

DV cameras had a very grainy image and although this was very effective for the urban/ block scenes, we might have used a more glossy, bright and happy image for the romantic scenes but with the cameras that we had this was impossible to achieve. When we were producing our film we had quite considerable limitations, especially in terms of equipment and low quality. Its main advantage was that it was very affordable. In terms of sound recording, we had to rely on voice-overs as it was unpractical to record sound on open set when we had insufficient equipment.

The digital camera provided us with pictures of good quality which was important as the picture is the focal point of the poster. We didn't have to rely on the digital camera too much as we only needed pictures for our poster as our magazine only utilised screenshots from our short film. An advantage of using the cameras was that we had instant access to photos and we could put it on the computer quickly. While we were taking the photos we had the ability to see whether their quality was sufficient as they were displayed on the digital screen. These is considerably superior to film cameras that would be unpractical to use, when creating the poster.

Using the software 'i-movie HD' to edit our film provided us with numerous advantages. The fact that it is a non-linear editing software allowed us to experiment with ideas easily and it meant that if we made a mistake, it was easy to fix it. As it is free and made for amateur filmmakers it was really easy to use as we didn't have problems with our time and financial constraints. However, we were constrained by the lack of features on i-movie, especially in terms of things like titles, "split screen" etc.

To produce our poster we used Photoshop CS4, an industry standard program. This proved to be both an advantage and a nuisance, due to the fact it was time consuming because of its in-depth features but advantageous because of the choice that we were provided with, which in turn allowed us to experiment with different ideas. Photoshop also allowed laying of images and image manipulation, which was really helpful in making our poster a good one. 

Pages is a desktop publisher that is not of industry standard but that's an advantage as it is really easy to use and there weren't any missing features that we needed to finish our magazine. This meant that Pages was sufficient for our needs and we managed to produce an effective magazine.

Internet was useful in the post-production stage as we were able to get copyright free music which would otherwise be near to impossible to achieve.  Sound effects were easy to get as when we needed them we simply went to a website that had copyright free music on it.

When creating our blogging evaluation, the internet was really helpful as we could compile all our data in one place, we could place a large number of different multimedia in order to enrich our evaluation. We were able to get feedback through things like Facebook. We were able to get images from the internet that proved to be useful in all parts of our evaluation.

We were able to upload our movie on You Tube which gave us quite a lot of audience feedback. Additionally uploading our pod-cast, director's commentary and practice shoot would have been impossible without You Tube. This allowed us to reach a wider audience which then gave us a bigger amount of feedback.

I-movie was helpful in our evaluation as without it we would have been unable to include so many different types of images and footage. We could play with the sound and make it coherent due to the fact that I-movie is a non-linear editing software.

Audience feedback on our 3 finished products

I recieved audience feedback for my short film, poster and magazine through numerous means. For our short film we posted our movie on You Tube ans linked it to Facebook so that we would be able to get our target audience to judge its suitability. They could comment on all the elements of the movie, this would provide us with important information that could help us improve our movie in the later stages of post-production.

We made my poster and magazine available for feedback by posting it on Facebook. We additionally printed a number of physical copies and stuck them on walls around my school with a caption; 'write on poster to comment.' This turned out to be really popular among other students and a large number of comments were made available to us.  

Our intent in getting audience feedback was to be able to improve our movie and make it more suitable to our target audience which is the group that's providing us with feedback. Jamie Coates (24) replied to us with; 'Themes, score and mise en scene are the best parts of the movie.' Doris Crow (17) thought that; 'the subject matter of the movie is really interesting but some of the production sadly brings the quality of the movie down.' The second comment had a strong effect on us and it led to us going back to improve some of our editing. In general the comments show that our movie reaches and is relevant to our intended audience of 16-25 year olds. The narrative has to be clear and easily accessible to my whole target audience and thus audience feedback was key in providing me with this. Michael Fonzie (23) after seeing our movie said this; 'story is quite clear and I like how all the main elements; the London sequence, the urban real life scene and the park scenes were clearly outlined.' Jared Flux (25) loved; 'how the voice over and the score really enhanced the themes that the movie was trying to put across. Additionally, watching the movie became more enjoyable.' Some people had problems with hearing all the voiceovers because the sound was at times too loud. This made us go back to editing the movie and we re-adjusted voice levels in all parts of the movie so that the audience could hear everything without any problems. This is an example of how important feedback is as without this small addition, watching the movie might not have been as enjoyable an experience as we wanted it to be. Jamie Coates made a second comment concerning our editing; 'the final scene seems to progress too fast and should be slowed down.' We decided not to do anything about this comment as we didn't want the scene to be drawn out too long as we wanted a short and sweet happy resolution to our narrative. 

Facebook was something that provided us with loads of feedback and really helped us in the final development stages of the film. We linked the movie on YouTube with our facebook accounts so that people could view our movie from facebook and comment on it, they said the following. Nora Jenkins (16) commented on our final titles which were originally over black and said that it would be better if we made them more interesting. We inserted more colourful and special titles on the newer version of imovie. Moses Wallis (18) noticed that there were some jumps at certain moments during our movie but we were unable to correct this as this was an issue that came from problems with our filming equipment that slightly broke down in the middle of one of our shoots.

Our movie was placed on You Tube which through linking with Facebook meant that we could get essential and really helpful feedback easily.
 

The feedback that we got for our poster from Harry Grump (19) was that; 'the poster captures your attention with its simplicity' This made us happy as initially we weren't sure whether this would work well. Another comment from Monica Kennedy (17) was that she thought that some background images might be helpful in placing the viewer in the setting of the movie. We decided against this as it might not work with the composition that we set out in the poster. Frank Junior (22) after seeing our poster for the first time immediately got the main themes that we were trying to put across to him; the Immigrant theme and a general feeling of comedy. This was really important for us as somebody within our target audience got from the poster exactly what we intended him t get from it. Matthew Kane (16) said that the billing block was different then the one usually found on movie posters, but we decided to leave it as it was, since we were making a poster for a short film so it was important that some differences were there. Carolina Zaza (19) said that she easily saw the romantic elements of our movie, thanks to the prevalence of red in our poster. This validates our poster as being quite successful since a female within our target audience saw the romantic elements of our movie and looking back to Frank Junior's comment, a male within our target audience saw the elements of comedy as well as the important themes. This means that our poster achieved its intended effect with both men and women in our target audience.

Finally we gave out our magazine to some of our friends so they could give us some feedback on its quality and suitability. Ingrid Tone (23) after reading the article said; 'it is an engaging read and makes me want to see your movie.' This was a good comment but we were disappointed that she didn't pick up on the analytical content of our article and we re-wrote so that it is now much clearer and easier to notice. Lloyd Games (20) had less positive comments about our layout as he said it was too muddled up and there were too many things on the page. This was quite important feedback as it led to a radical change in our design. We got rid of things that were irrelevant or weren't effective, thus making the page less crowded and then we grouped boxes/pictures that went together and our page became much clearer. After we made all the corrections based on the feedback we got we asked Kate Hunter (19) what she thought of the magazine and her positive response made us happy with the magazines final look.

              

To sum up audience feedback was really important for our film as it allowed us to introduce some modifications in the final stages of the film's post-production. When we did something wrong we corrected it until we got it perfect, and when we reached that point, we simply did more of it. Thanks to all the feedback that we got we are happy to release our film as we consider it to be as good as we can make it, and additionally as appropriate for our target audience.

Q2 How effective the combination of your main and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Q1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Practice Shot

Final Magazine

Comment

This is the final version of our magazine. We produced this magazine on a program called Pages. This magazine is done in a serious form which is similar to 'Sight & Sound.' In our review we concentrate on giving our readers an analysis of our movie - we give special attention to the serious themes of immigration but we also mention the romantic and comedy elements present in Adam's Apples. We included a box which contains an interview with one of the directors of our movie - this seemed like a good idea as it gives the audience an inside look into the background of the movie. Additionally there is a box which lists all the movies that are similar to Adam's Apples and which the audience might enjoy watching. The layout that we adopted is quite simple and the page is not clogged up which makes the page easy to take it in. The red colour scheme keeps in line with the romantic themes in our film. The pictures show iconic images from the film which the reader should remember after watching our film. A final touch is given by the background image of the White eagle which is the coat of arms of Poland.

Film Poster

This is our final film poster; we done edited this all on Photoshop CS4. First of we had to take a picture of our main character and upload it to the computer. We used the lasso tool to cut around the image and take away the background so we were only left with main character. This was very long to do, however it was worth doing and we done it very well. The apple image we used was an image that we got from the Internet, we again used the lasso tool to cut round it which was much easier this time as the background was white. To give the apples a rain effect I had to make multiple copies which was very long as new layers had to made every time and when I wanted to find a specific apple to move, it was difficult because there was so many. The text was very easy to do, as Photoshop uses similar tools to other programmes, although it was simple the text looked very professional. 

Magazine Draft 2

Comment

We decided that in terms of writing we would rather follow the style of 'Sight & Sound' than magazines such as 'Total Film' and 'Empire'.  The layout of this draft has more things on it then the previous one and we believe this is the right path to follow as it leads to our magazine possessing more quality content.

Magazine Draft 1

Comment

This is our initial design layout of our magazine. When we made our draft we made sure that we had all the key parts of a magazine review included; Section Title, Pictures, Headline, Strapline, Subheading, Intro, Breakout Paragraph, Byline, Columns, Call to Action and Graphics. We will try to write in a way that engages a viewer that doesn't necessarily have to be a movie buff - thus we will not use technical language that would be incomprehensible to a normal reader. 

Final Storyboard

Final draft storyboard

This is our final storyboard, we chose to re-draft our storyboard because we wanted to to cut down some of the scenes and break down some of the shots, such as using close ups and reaction shots. We also thought different shots would be appropriate, to get the most out of certain scenes, for example we decided to use an over the shoulder shot instead of a POV to make the persons actions more clear to the audience.

We also put in the shot times, which will help us when we are on set as it will give us a more accurate time of the shot rather than guessing. We also included sound and dialogue, which will give us and idea of the feel of scenes in the film.

3rd Poster Idea

This poster shows the faces of the two main characters who fall in love, beneath each face is the name of the actor playing the role, this follows the conventions of posters as the name of the star playing the role will attract a certain audience they are trying to aim at, it will also create allot of attention for the film. There are red apples going between the two faces showing that they play a big role in their relationship, red also symbolises romance which will help the audience infer the romantic theme of the film. There is also a release date on the bottom right, which makes it easy to see. The audience this poster will be aimed at is girls as they are the ones who mostly watch romantic films. 

2nd Poster Idea (chosen idea)

This is the second poster idea that we had, it shows the star of the movie holding an umbrella because it is raining apples. We decided to have the raining apples as it is stereotypically always raining in England, we used apples as it is the running theme throughout the film and they symbolise his happiness, the apples are also red, which symbolises passion and romance so that links with the romantic theme in our movie. He is also wearing a polish scarf to show that he is from poland and just came to the country. The title of the film will be at the top of the poster "Adam's apples", the tag line will be underneath the the title. This poster will appeal to a wide audience, and maybe not the stereotypical audience of a romantic comedy, which is female dominated, as we only have the male star on the poster more males will be drawn to this film as it is not obviously romantic.  We chose this as our final idea as it is the most creative and gets the message of an immigrant coming to a new country across well.

1st Poster Idea

This is our first poster idea, it shows the main character and his love interest sitting on a bench together, this is a poignant scene in the film. From this image the audience will immediately know that the film has a romantic theme as it is a conventional image used in romantic films. On the ground where you would expect grass, there are apples instead, this shows the running motiff of our film, this motiff is a metaphor for pride and happiness. We decided not to use this poster as we found it quite bland and not very engaging. 

Locations

In our short film we will be using many locations in London; some of these locations are very iconic like the London eye, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. We want to film in these places so that we can show how people who aren’t from England admire the landmarks and history of the city, we also want to contrast it with the more realistic and urban side of London which migrants don’t expect.

Filming in these landmarks in London can be very tricky because there is always allot of people around, this will make it difficult to get a realistic shot as people will be walking in front of the camera, or looking straight into the lens. We will try and get around this by keeping these shots to a minimum and making them simple, so we will just show the landmark, we won’t try and shoot a full scene there. These short simple shots will work as we will be using it as a montage.

In contrast to these iconic landmarks, we will show a gritty urban estate; this will show the more real, gritty part of London. This estate will be perfect as it is easy to get to and the connotations of the iconography is very good, tower blocks are often seen as crime infested and where the lower classes live. 

Below is a picture of the bench, which the main character goes to after his Job interviews, this is also where he meets the girl that he falls in love with. This is a convenient location as it is close for all the cast and crew involved to get to. There also wont be too many people around, unlike in central london, so it will make it easier to film. The disadvantage is that we will not have any control over lighting and we will have to mute all the background sound of people and the wind.

Bellow are some of the shops that are going to be in the scenes where he goes to get a job, we chose these locations as they are close to go to, they are also realistic jobs that an immigrant would be able to get, because stereotypically immigrants wont have the qualifications or skills to get any better jobs. We did have some problems filming outside the shops, the first was that people started waving at the camera from inside the shop, which would have ruined the realism of the shot. We were also told that we were not allowed to film outside DFS by one of the employees because of image rights.

Shooting Schedule

First day of Filming

Date: 26/10/11

Time: 10am - 6pm

Location: Central London (spread out)

Shots: 1-14

Actors: Adam

Crew: Amilcar (director, cameraman, props)

Costumes and props: Tourist backpack for Adam as well as a plastic bag full of apples.

Equipment: Camera, DV tape, tripod

Potential issues: People - there are large numbers of people moving around central London so they might intrude into our shots [will have to work around them]. Weather - as we are filming outside changing weather might prove problematic.

Risk Assessment: Medium - as we will have to be very mobile we will have to constantly watch out for cars as well as pedestrians so that we don't intrude in their proceedings.

Second day of Filming

Date: 27/10/11

Time: 12am - 4pm

Location: White City (and around it)

Shots: 15-19

Actors: Adam and William

Crew: Amilcar (director, cameraman, props)

Costumes and props: Suit for Adam as well as a plastic bag full of apples and a satchel bag.

Equipment: Camera, DV tape, tripod

Potential issues: People - there are considerable numbers of people moving around White City so they might intrude into our shots [will have to work around them]. Weather - as we are filming outside changing weather might prove problematic.

Risk Assessment: Medium - as we will have to be very mobile we will have to constantly watch out for cars as well as pedestrians so that we don't intrude in their proceedings.

Third day of Filming

Date: 28/10/11

Time: 10am - 11am

Location: Inside school Sixth Form

Shots: 20-21

Actors: Adam

Crew: Amilcar (director, cameraman, props)

Costumes and props: A single apple nothing more - maybe a satchel bag.

Equipment: Camera, DV tape, tripod

Potential issues: People - there are large numbers of people moving around the school between lessons so we will have to film during lessons.

Risk Assessment: None - normal school environment. There shouldn't be any threat to our safety.

Fourth day of Filming

Date: 29/10/11

Time: 9am - 5pm

Location: Park (and around it)

Shots: 22-40

Actors: Adam and The Girl

Crew: Amilcar (director, cameraman, props)

Costumes and props: Lunch box full of apples for Adam as well as the suit and a satchel bag.

Equipment: Camera, DV tape, tripod

Potential issues: People - people in parks like to be surrounded by calm so we shouldn't intrude on them. Weather - as we are filming outside changing weather might prove problematic.

Risk Assessment: None - normal park environment. There shouldn't be any threat to our safety.

Character Casting

The Immigrant (Adam) - William Merrick The polish immigrant whose proceeds are recorded in the movie Will wear normal clothes so he looks like an immigrant. A Polish scarf will be used to make it explicitly clear that he is Polish. The actor will be made to look 18. After getting to the bus stop scene he will be in a suit and will stay in it. The reason for him wearing the suit was to put a comedic spin on his attempts to find a job as he is clearly unable to get a job where he would actually need to be wearing a suit. The suits general shagginess keeps in line with his polish mise en scene. The actor should, at least initially, look dazed and confused so that it's clear that  he is in a completely new environment. The emotions of happiness and sadness should be easily presented by the character. Will have to film during weekends or half-term  as during school days the actor is unable to film.

The Girl - Jasmine Adan The love interest. The actress will be dressed normally - nothing extravagant. She will be made to look roughly the same age as the main character. The actress doesn't have to act much but her expressions and facial features would be important as we are trying to link this movie to the days of the silent cinema where the facial expressions told the story. We will have to film during weekends or half-term as during school days we are unable to film. We chose this actress as it provides an interesting theme of the different ethnicities - which are both originally from outside the UK and both meet each other in Britain. This multi-ethnic theme is extremely relevant to Britain. 

Rude Pedestrian - Adam Mielcarek The person who stumbles into Adam near the bus stop. Will be rude and will dress like a 'cockney geezer' this look will be very important and the actor will have to both look and act like one so that all is clear to the audience without any need for additional explanation. Availability should not be a problem as the actor is a project member.

Commentary - We decided to have a limited number of characters as the fact that we are making a short film means that we are unable to develop too many characters in sufficient detail and we can only really develop one character on an appropriate level. Additionally it is more practical to only have 3 characters as we are unable to recruit too many people. Because we are making a movie about young adults it is easier for us to get actors that fit that profile than it would be if we were making a movie about 40 year olds as such are not present in our circle of friends.

Storyboard - 1st draft

File 0001

This the first draft of our storyboard and in it we set out the basics of how we will film our movie - this version is only meant to give us an idea of what our movie will look like. Our next version will be developed in more sufficient detail with more attention to technical feature of a storyboard - such as timings, sounds and better drawings of shots.

Final Script

1. Int. Victoria Coach Station. Day

A coach comes into the station and as people start getting out we cut to a shot of 'The Immigrant' with a big backpack, looking around slightly bewildered. In his hand he holds a plastic bag full of apples

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

Yes, Yes, Yes. I finally reached my destination. After everything I've gone through, this is it, my utopia. It does seem strange, however, this country. Oh well I will yet learn to love it.

2. Ext. Central London. Day

Immigrant' now leaves station and goes outside (with the backpack) walks around London, there is no voiceover but some light hearted, positive music plays while there are a couple of shots of him walking past some famous landmarks. The bag of apples stays with him.

3. Ext. At Trafalgar Square. Day

'Immigrant' now goes to see famous landmarks; Trafalgar square, London eye. At Trafalgar square he has his head constantly tilted up and he never takes his eyes of the column. He bites an apple while his eyes stay fixated on the column.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

Wow. Wow. Wow. Just Wow. This is amazing; I have never seen anything so big and amazing with such strength pulsating off it.

4. Ext. Outside London Eye. Day

At the London Eye his head keeps turning in a circular motion.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

Singing - You spin me right round, baby right round like a record, baby Right round round round You spin me right round, baby Finishes singing. I need to eat an apple.

5. Ext. Central London. Day

A long shot of the immigrant in a crowd smiling and as the camera zooms in as he raise an apple to his mouth and the camera finishes zooming in when the whole screen is filled with just the apple. (Positive really happy music plays until zooming finishes when the music suddenly ends.)

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

I love this place, I could have never expected to be so lucky and to get to live in such an amazing city.

6. Ext. Bad part of London. Night or Dark

(A darker more sinister music starts playing) Slowly the camera zooms out from the apple and the character's face has changed - not quite sad but neither is it happy. The surroundings are dark, maybe industrial.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

Well this feels more like home. I guess I should be grateful it's not any worse.

7. Ext. Council Flats etc. Day

Walks out of some flat that's in a very mediocre area and as he goes to a bus stop he has a shoulder bag. Somebody stumbles into him without even acknowledging that it takes place and the bag falls off with apples spilling out while the 'somebody' doesn't stop to help.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

My precious. My precious, I will save you!!!!!!!

8. Ext. Park. day

The immigrant goes to a park on his lunch break and goes to seat on park bench. There is a girl sitting on the bench reading a book. Immigrant looks shifty. Eats apples from lunch box.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

Hmmm I wonder if she wants an apple. If fate is on my side I will meet her again and talk to her then.

9. Ext. park. day

Same situation as the day before but this time he looks at her but then hangs his head down, she looks at him but he cannot see her look at him. Eats apples from lunch box.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

He sighs - maybe next time

10. Ext. Park. Day

Sits down next to her and as he takes out an apple it slips out of his hand and she picks it up and as she gives it back to him, their eyes meet and as their hands touch there is a spark between them.

The Immigrant

(Voiceover)

I gotta love my apples.

Screen cuts to black.

Credits roll with apples in the background.

Comments on the redraft.

We decided to get rid of the scenes in school as they seemed to be adding too much length to our movie and we also noticed that it didn't flow quite as well as the rest of the story. The part of the story which takes place in the park allows the movie to have a happy ending as well as adding a romantic element to the story which in turn expands our potential audience. The decision to have no dialgoue and just voiceover is a good choice as due to our technical limitations this will make it much more practical when filming our film.