Media Evaluation

Aj Watson

Main Production: Jade’s BridgeMy aim was to produce a film that fitted into the British realistic drama genre, so I based the majority of my research around Shane Meadows and Tom Harper, as they have made films such as “This is England” “Dead Mans Shoes” and “Scouting Book For Boys”. A lot of the conventions used in these films included unusual camera angles, symbolism, and a representing Britain as a tough working class environment. I tried to use locations that fit into this category, so I filmed outside a lot as I felt this was easier to capture real Britain in its non-artificial form. I used a Black and White title in the opening sequence as I wanted to keep it as simple as possible; too fancy or flamboyant a title wouldn’t fit in with the conventions of the genre.

I used camcorders to capture the footage, and Adobe Premiere Pro, a linear film editing suite, to edit into a final cut. I also used condenser microphones to capture outside dialogue and sounds as the quality was better from these than the built in camcorder microphone. I also used a recording studio with Cubase to record tracks for the film, and uploaded my completed project and research onto a blog using the internet and a computer. When using a camcorder, it was essential to alter certain features like white balance, zoom, and exposure to ensure that I captured the highest quality footage possible. In scenes such as when Craig is answering the phone, I had to lower the exposure so that the message on the phone could be read, as with normal exposer the screen lit up too much and was unreadable. With regards to microphones, I ensured I didn’t place them to close to the sound it was picking up as they were very sensitive microphones and would crack and distort if they were too close.

Clear titles

Abstract camera angles

Use of flowers/Symbolism

Ancillary 1: Film PosterI wanted to produce a film poster that used existing media conventions. The majority of existing posters contained as a bare minimum: a billing block, title of film, directors name, and a suitable picture. My poster therefore had to contain all of these elements. The layout of the posters I researched are fairly generic, with the title positioned next to or near the main subject, a billing block either near the title or at the bottom of the poster, and other quotes and texts positioned away from key elements in the background (for example placed away from the subject, and more towards dark areas or in sky or grass) I decided to layout my poster in portrait as opposed to landscape.

To make my film poster I did a photo-shoot with Rob using a Canon digital SLR camera to get the highest quality photo, and edited the photo on Adobe Photoshop CS5. I constructed all the text in Photoshop and layered the poster so that it conformed to what would be expected of a professional product in the film industry. Altering brightness and contrast in Photoshop was needed to make the colours of the background photo in the poster stand out and look more organic and professional.

Billing Block

Industry names/images

Title away from subject

Quotes/reviews/star ratings

My second ancillary task was to produce a magazine film review. I used Sight & Sound, Empire, and Total Film to aid my research. There were two standard layout formats that I came across when researching, and these were to have a picture as the background, or use a plain white background. I discovered that there were many similar conventions across all of the magazines, including a large capital letter at the beginning of the first paragraph, pull out quotes, anchorages (captions), italics, block column text layout, and brief information about the film at the top. Simple colours, mainly white, are standard for Sight and Sound, whereas Total Film and Empire use more vibrant colours. I used a half plain white background, half picture, with a block column to the bottom right. I also used clear font, and a footer to conform to the media conventions of my product.

Ancillary 2: Film Magazine Review

To construct the review I used Microsoft Publisher and photos from the photo-shoot with rob so that the high quality resolution in the pictures remained constant. I used publisher with a blank A3 page layout and built the review so that half of the page was a picture of Rob and the other half was writing captions and smaller photos. This followed the layout of a sight and sound review of “The Truman Show” I had seen in a copy of the magazine.

Plain title

Suitable pictures

Columnar Formatting

Colour Scheme

In order to link together all three products, I used a universal colour scheme, with green and blue shades being prominent. I also tried to use the similar fonts for the titles, with clear formatting and ideally bold simple text. I designed the font for the poster and film in Photoshop, so I knew that they would tie together. The review was slightly harder to link in with the poster and film because I had to conform to what Sight and Sound magazine readers would expect to see in that magazine, so very simple formatting was a must. However, as the film is an independent British film, the review in sight and sound would be an effective combination with the poster and film as it is an independent film magazine as opposed to mainstream Empire and Total Film. The combination of my ancillary texts and main product demonstrate realistically what a professional media product would look like, and I therefore think they tie together effectively.

Audience feedback encouraged me to produce something that was more professional, and aided me to tailor my film so that it appealed more to my target audience. All of the feedback for the film poster was positive, and this is likely to be because it clearly represents a film poster and looks like a professional product that would be seen in a cinema. I learned from my Film review audience feedback that I needed to include a footer at the bottom of the page to show what magazine the review belonged too, and to use different colours for my captions as it looked more professional than just using one.