The document provides details about a student's media evaluation project where they created a short film along with ancillary tasks like a film poster and review. The student chose to work independently to have full creative control. They researched short film techniques on websites and analyzed other films. Feedback from audiences in their target age range of 15-20 was gathered during the process. New media technologies like YouTube, iMovie and Photoshop were used at different stages. The combination of the film and ancillary texts was effective as they maintained a consistent simplicity throughout.

1. Media Evaluation Daisy Jeffries

2. Introduction I decided that for my A2 coursework I would work independently as I felt this way I could only rely on myself meaning I would work more efficiently. I knew taking on this challenge would be difficult but working independently let me create something that I wanted to create rather than having to compromise with other people. I chose the brief of a short film and the ancillary tasks I chose where the films poster and a review page of the film.

3. Introduction 2 Once I decided on my chosen brief I decided to watch short films to gather together ideas and to look at the codes and conventions of a short film. To get to my final piece I went through I very lengthy process because my idea’s changed a lot because I discovered that when I went to actually film I was coming across a lot of hurdles. My first idea that I blogged about was the main one I used when creating my film. Original idea- Based on teenagers and going through the notions of being a teenager. Other idea’s- Documentary, comedy and ect. I soon realised when I started filming these ‘other ideas’ that they just wouldn’t work so I decided to brain storm ideas and came up with my final piece.

4. Who am I? Here is just a brief synopsis of my final piece… It’s a short film about a teenager girl who is stuck in this place that she just can’t seem to escape from. This is shown in the film by showing the girl running away and then showing her in reverse always coming back. The girl is lonely and in a place where she feels no one understands her and she feels isolated. This is represented in the film but the image of her alone in a large field and also the genre of music I used helped this. In my film I simply use a chair on a field as I wanted to make my film very simplistic. I used numerous camera angles and edits to ensure my film wasn’t to repetitive and boring.

5. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ? I decided to make a successful short film I would have to look at and analyse short films to get a sense of what I should be creating. I was pleasantly surprised when I started to watch some short films because I realised they don’t particularly have to follow strict codes and conventions. Some things I did realise… Short films tend to have one main character as the focus of the film and rarely do we lose view of them. I used this typical convention in my short film as I have just one main character and the camera always focuses on them. Short films are usually between 1-5 minutes long My film fitted into this time slot running at 2 minutes. Short films are often low budget and don’t contain extravagant effects and titles. My short film was low budget and contained very little effects. The only actually special effect I used was putting some of my clips in reverse. Also because it was low budget it was easiest to use an actor my own age.

6. Continued…. Voice overs are often used in short films. At first I decided I wanted to use a voice over of the girl in the film to help the audience understand what it was about. But I decided after watching it through without the voice over and just the music that I wanted to leave it out because I want to leave my audience guessing as to what happened. Short films often use twist in the plot to make the film interesting. Because I am using no dialog in my short film I realised it would be difficult to show a twist in my film. However after some deliberation I decided that my twist would the very last shot of just the chair and the girl isn’t there anymore. This will hopefully leave the audience asking themselves what happened? Did she finally escape? Etc…. I used www.virginmediashorts.co.uk to watch And analyse short films

7. Continues…. I was slightly worried once I had decided to use no voice overs and just simply use music and moving image and worried that it may come across as a music video… But after watching some more short films I realised dialog is not needed and that sometimes the camera angles and actor can get the story across with out using dialog. Examples of no dialog…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyaNk2NrZwg http://www.youtube.com/VirginMediaShorts#p/a/E83F4C5BD40CA3AC/1/W-EljUcL-DM

8. Ancillary Tasks As I was also creating my ancillary tasks I had to do research on both of this aswell. On my blog page I analysed 3 short film posters and looked at the language and layout of a film review. I noticed that short film posters tend to not give a lot away about the film. For example. As you can see the poster consist of one image, the title of the film and sometimes a slogan and then the additional information at the bottom. When creating my poster I kept all of this in mind and created hopefully a successful and believable poster.

9. Ancillary Tasks continued…. My second ancillary task was to create a film review page. To create a successful and believable review page I looked at and analysed some film reviews. I come to discover the your normal cinema film review differed to a short film review, because obviously in a long feature length film there is a lot more plot to write about. I found a great website that helped to work out the layout and style of a short film review and tried to use it to help me create my own…. http://www.filmguru.net/shorts/index.html

10. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? To make an all together good product overall you need to ensure the your ancillary’s are well made and link to the film itself. Without this the film wouldn’t sell itself well to the audience and without an audience you don’t have a successful film. I hope to think that my ancillary texts have done my main product justice and helped the audience get an idea of what my film is about. When making my ancillary texts I made sure they in some way linked back to my main product other ways they wouldn’t be worth making. The film review I created sells my main product in a positive way without being to opinionated. I describes the film as short sweet and simplistic. I think these words would appeal to an audience as they aren’t given a complicated plot that is difficult to keep up with. The poster I created relates really well to my main product. I made the poster very simplistic to match the main product and the words in the film review. If the audience can relate to the simplistic poster than they will hopefully chose to watch the film and its simplistic style.

11. Continued…. All in all I think I created a simplistic product and ancillary tasks. I did this because I felt that the audience could relate to this without having to give them to much information. I also think that I followed the same trend of simplicity throughout all of my tasks. Having done this I think my product should sell itself well because its consistent and consistency is very important when creating a product.

12. What have you learned from your audience feedback? To ensure I created a successful product I had to carry out numerous surveys to gather information like… Favourite genre? Where people go to watch films? Do you attend film festivals? I asked a group of 50 people both male and female ranging from the ages of 15-20 This sample is representative of the audiences I am aiming my film at therefore giving me some good audience feed back.

13. Audience feed back Where do you go to watch films? Have you ever attended a film festival?

14. Continued…. During the process of making my film I asked my chosen audience for feed back because I wanted to make sure I was creating something my audience would enjoy. The feed back I was given was very constructive and helped me perfect my piece to what the audience want. I asked the same people about their thoughts on my pieces throughout the making of my products so that my feed back stayed consistent. From some of my audience feed back I was worried it wouldn’t appeal to anyone, but I soon realised that it didn’t have to appeal to a mass audience but a niche audience that I aimed it at. Audience feed back was vital when creating my products because it gave me an understanding of what my audience wanted and helped me make my product appealing to my audience.

15. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? When making my product I used lots of new media technology to research plan and evaluate my product. This is a list of all of the main sources I used. Youtube.com Blogger.com Virginmedia.com Garageband.com Photo shop I movie Publisher Video Camera Canon DC 8.1 V I tried to use these sources to my full advantage but they did have some drawbacks….

16. Continued…. Youtube.com- I used youtube to watch short films in my research and planning stage, to help me gather idea’s of codes and conventions Virginmedia.com- I also used this to watch and analyse short films as it was quick and effective Garagebang.com- I used garage band to find copyright free music for my film. The only draw back with using this website is that not all of its music is copyright free so you have to look around. Blogger.com- I used blogger to write down all my stages of research, planning and progress I felt it was quick and easy to use. However sometimes technology can’t always be reliable! Video Camera- I obviously used a video camera to film my product. It was simple to use however it wasn’t always working and I had to keep swapping the cameras I used. Canon DC 8.1 V-I used the stills camera to capture an image for my film poster. I was lucky enough to use a professional camera what gave me great quality pictures which were easier to edit on photo shop.

17. Continued…. Photo Shop- I used photo shop to edit my images for my poster to match the same tint I used in my film. Photoshop is quick and easy to use once you get the hang of it. Publisher- I used publisher to create my film review. Its simple to use and helps you with the layout without to much hassle. FINALLY I MOVIE! Using I Movie was defiantly the most lengthy process out of everything. At As we used the old style max computers that were somewhat more complicated than the new machines we used this year. Its simple to use however it can be very unpredictable and unreliable at times which sometimes puts your work at a lot of risk. I had to edit my film more than once because the first few edits didn’t save. I Movie has a tendency to not save your work properly which can be very stressful when you are editing your film especially when the time between your edits are very small and precise. However apart from those minor hiccups I Movie is easy to use once you know the basics and lets you create a moving image that you want.