Evaluation

Question 1 - In what way does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is our production company logo like most production company logos used today we have kept it very simple with a minimal anount of sound but enough to engage the audience before the film starts. The production company logo was placed before the film, this is how it would be in the film industry.

We have used conventions of film noir and put our film in black and white, I really like this effect and for our narrative helps shows the audience the difference in time periods. We have also met film noir conventions by setting our film in the 1950's.

This in example of a close up camera angle to focus on text, we have used this elsewhere in our film as well although this isn't a common film noir convention it allowed us to show our narrative through text.

We have challenged film noir conventions by having some of our film in colour this then meets our neo-noir conventions. The reason why we choose to do both neo-noir and film noir is to show the difference in time. To meet the neo-noir conventions, the femme fatale is wearing a very strong red dress.

We have used film noir and neo-noir conventions of having the femme fatale being a very dominant and strong women. However we have developed conventions by having her looking in the mirror showing two of her. This helps show her power.

 We have developed film noir conventions of venitian blinds, this technique is usually used to show trouble or jail bars. We have developed it by using a bared banister which we have placed both the femme fatale and her husband who she later murders behind. We placed the camera carefully to make sure it looks like they are behind the bars. This short is also a good example of a dark shot, this again can be linked to the bars and showing something bad is going to happen.

Again we have develoepd this convention further by having the bars in the mirrors which again shows the audience that something bad might happen to him.

We have used film noir conventions by having an urban area in our film, we have also used stalking which appears in some film noirs.

A common film noir convention is millionaires, we have developed this to show the clash between class. Here we have upper class Evelyn Harold and Waitress Sarah Jones. However, we do seem the unite to kill James Harold. I think that this fits the neo-noir genre more as it is often used in films now.

Another common film noir and neo-noir convention is alcohol we have used this however we have developed and challenged conventions by adding poison to it. Posion isn't a common film noir murder weapon.

The death in our film was a revenge murder because her husband cheated this is a conventions that we have challenged as most narritives suggest its for gang/drug reasons. However our narritave does use alot of film noir conventions; investigation, murder, plot and double crossing. We have also followed conventions with our characters; detectives, femme fatale and police.

We have used guns in our movie which meets both the film noir and neo-noir conventions. However, we have used modern guns which meets the neo-noir conventions and challenges the film noir conventions. This again is also a really good example of a dark shot again this suggests danger and prepares the audience for something bad happening.

We have challenged film noir conventions by having the femme fatale over powered after she double crosses Sarah so that she can get away with murder. Here we also have corrupt police which we have also developed further by having a corrupt marriage at the start of our film.

We have used an office in our film this is a film noir convention that we have used. We tried to make the office look as real as possible but also make it look like a detectives office, we think we have done this with the use of the large map.

Here we have a canted angle and a poitn of view shot both of these are very common in film noir and therefore is a convention that we have used. I think that this shot works really well and looks very effective.

In true femme fatale style we see her double cross Sarah, we have used this scene to quickly explain to the audience what is happening. We have used a voice over of a newspaper headline being read out this is a common film noir convention. We used it really effectively here and I think it explains everything to the audience.

Throughout our film we have used music to compliment our movie this is very common of film noirs however we have challenge by only using jazz music the most common film noir music once our film. Our music mainly compliments the film noir genre.

 Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

For this project I have created one main product which was a neo-noir and film noir called Hard Cash, to support this I have also created two ancillary texts a poster aimed at middle aged men and women and a film review about my film and two other films. I think that the combination of all three products work really well together and they all compliment each other. As I have already said my poster is aimed at middled aged men and women, I aimed to show the love triangle in the film, I have definantly achieved this by they way that the characters are placed however, some of the connections are not as clear I had first hoped for example the marriage between Evelyn and James. This could though create curiosity for the viewer and make them want to see the film more. One thing that I think I should have come how encoroprated is to show murder or death within my poster as this is a major part of my narritive. When I was designing my poster I chose not to include this as I didn't think it was suitable for my target audience. I have used alot of publicity methods within my poster for example star rattings to try and encourage views to go see the film. The poster alone doesn't give the viewer much information about the film but when supported with the film review it becomes a lot clearer. I have tried with all my ancillary texts to pursuade the viewer to see the film but not give everything away it is for this reason that I decided not to give away the murders in both ancillary texts however, my film review does clearly tell the reader about the plot without giving to much away. I think that my review compliments the poster as it has the same colour scheme and they both have the same image, this links them together well. I think that although I have used similar images and colours I should have used my main title for the film within the film review however I decided not to as it wouldn't follow the design on the other pages. The poster and film review have the same quote on, I have used this because I think it really helps to sell the movie.  Although I have created two high standard pieces which do compliment my film noir, I think a teaser trailer would have complimented my film noir a lot as it would have been able to show a lot more than the film review and poster without revealing too much.
Below is a video of a 20 year old girl who has watched my film and viewed both my poster and film review, they gave thier view on the combination of ancillary text and product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqECk3RhuOs&feature=youtu.be
Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In the video below I have interviewed two people, one of which meets our films teenage target audience and the other meets the middle aged men and women target audience. I have also included a list of feedback from students at Knights Templar School which where collected when every media students films where first showed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDRtCYzZJyQ&feature=youtu.be

I got some really positive feedback as well as gaining some negative feedback, one thing that came up a lot as a contrivertial topic was the comparison between black and white and colour. Our aim was to show both film noir and neo-noir. Some people really liked it and found that it helpd the story develop but other found the difference in time confusing. Although Lucy and I both found it clear this could be because we created it, what I have learnt is that we should have made the time scale more obvious this could be done by adding text which we only did at the start of the movie to show the difference in time. The other thing that we could have explored is making the flashbacks more clear by maybe adding a blurred effect before the flashback.

One comment made is that we had a good storyline, I really agree with this and I think we spent a lot of time on our script however, another person commented that the storyline could have been developed considerably if we had a longer film but due to time constraints this was not possible.

If I was to make this film again I would aim to make it longr as it would allow the storyline to be developed. Another thing that I would aim to improve is the filming although it was commented that we had very good cinematography it was also commented that the camera work was shaky, this could be improved easily with the use of a tripod so that the camera is still.

I agree with a lot of the comments made and I think that our film; Hard Cash could be improved with the audience feedback given however, one thing that I really like in our film is the credits. The credits are very professional and work well with the rest of the film, I think that we have adapted the usual film conventions by adding moving images of the main characters instead of a simple rolling film creaits.

Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Below is a video of me talking about all the media technologies that I have used within my project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrhix1kj3vY&context=C4fe5f43ADvjVQa1PpcFNsfOM30h36pSXPqEdHN_wEP-G0aAZvwvk=

-Blogs
-Internet
-Youtube
-Picnik
-Photoshop
-Nikon D3000 cmaera
-Panasonic HD camera
-Final Cut
- Mac computers
- Microsoft office word
-Microsoft Publisher

Film Review Spread

I originally planned to do a double page spread with all three of my film reviews on but unfortunally they didn't all fit. So I decided the best thing was to have 3 page one for each review unfortunally this doesn't make Hard Cash stand out as much as I originally wanted to but I have used the space well and I think that it has definantly allowed me to create three high quality pages.

I am really happy with all of these pages, I especially like the use of images. I think I have done well to include everything and still have plenty of space for pictures. My least favourite page is the L.A. Confidential review page as I think it looks really busy and there is a lot of text. If I was to do this again I think I would have written less as it is a very long film review.

Hard Cash Film Review

As well as writing two other film reviews, I have written a film review on my own film; Hard Cash. I have found the other film reviews quite easy to write and I have learnt a lot from them however, I found writting a review on my own film really hard even though I know everything about it. Here is my attempt:

New to the scene directors Rosie Lansbury and Lucy Cunnington have released a hard hitting, 7 minute, 21^st Century composition of film noir and neo-noir in the form of Hard Cash. A combination of the two has never been done before and it’s safe to say the directors have been very brave but have they pulled it off? Hard Cash shouldn’t work as a film with the in-experienced youth actors (who have no future in the industry) and the low budget props (using bog standard tomato ketchup for blood wasn’t their best move) however, they have made this short film work.
The combination of modern day in colour and flashbacks in black and white helps the constantly thickening plot develop. When Evelyn Harold (Chloe Newton) finds her husband James Harold (Daniel Cowie) cheating we see the femme fatale in her unleashed.  This continues throughout and we see Evelyn fool everyone including Sarah Jones (Lucy Cunnington) framing her for the murder of James Harold. However, karma catches up with her in the form of Detective Jack Chandler (Ben Humberstone).
Throughout we are treated to lots of film noir conventions scattered with some bold neo-noir conventions but one major convention that the team missed out was dark lighting and single shot lighting. It’s a real shame that they missed this out however, we are treated to a voice over of a newspaper headline, this is a perfect example of a neo-noir and film noir convention.
Rosie Lansbury and Lucy Cunnington have most defiantly some boxes to be on their way to create an exemplary film. Hard Cash was a brave choice but the combination of film noir and neo-noir made them stand out from the crowd. The duo have a few errors to iron out before they really break through into the industry. I look forward to their next film!

Now I have written all my film reviews I need to create a double page spread that is suitable for a review magazine. It will include all my film reviews and I plan to make it a film noir special edition.

Film review research continued...

As well as discussing film review pages with lucy, I have studied one double page spread by myself. As you can see I have annotated different sections of this double page spread; I have learnt that the images are just as important as the text. From studying this double page spread I have also decided that I want to do a short summary of each film before having the review. I also want to use collumns as I think this breaks up the text well and utelises the space.

I have decided that I want to do a neo-noir and film noir edition as this relates to all my film reviews. My next step is to write a film review for Hard Cash and then design my double page spread which will include the following film reviews:

-Hard Cash (main review)

-L.A. Confidential (sub-review)

-Brick (sub-review)

Film review research

Throughout this project I have written two film reviews one on a film noir (L.A. Confidential) and one on a neo noir film (Brick). I have choosen to create a double page spread for a film review magazine. It will contain the two reviews that I have already written, these will be mini reviews. I then plan to write a film review on our film noir (Hard Cash) for this I will use up a whole page and make it the main review.

Although I have experience on writting film reviews now, I have not yet studied a film review magazines. Below are three videos of lucy and I discussing several pages of different film review magazines. This is in the same format as when we looked at the film posters, again I found this very useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrj3bZ_SE74&context=C4f9a7daADvjVQa1PpcFO77QS8awzDpGEkrq0TME2-vv2SzOzZu68=


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6LpLzyF1g&context=C45948e6ADvjVQa1PpcFO77QS8awzDpIE9WjCzmaMLyWOWgU-RwIU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCUK7i6qsc&context=C48c52c5ADvjVQa1PpcFO77QS8awzDpGjUx6mmxYFTx_Sm1oLJDdE

Evaluation preperation

What have you achieved so far?	Conventions?	What are you pleased with and what needs further improvement?	Good/confident use of the media technology?	Research and planning? Excellent/Good /Satisfactory/Not satisfactory	Audience feedback/ research target audience?
Main product:	Film Noir:	I am really pleased with our final product however, I defiantly feel that we should have used more Film Noir techniques. I think that if we had more time to create our film noir we would have been able to involve more conventions. One thing that I would defiantly want to add is single shot lighting and scenes filmed at night time, although we originally planned to involved night shots due to time constraints we were not able to. I think this would add a whole new dimension to our film and would defiantly improve it. I really like the design for the poster and I think it will be very eye catching. It has been specially designed to appeal to middle aged men and women by involving love. If I was to criticise the poster in one way it would be to say that I don’t think the background which is a plain colour is very interesting however, there is not location that could have been used effectively.	Final Cut:	I did a lot of research and planning throughout the project for each section; film noir, neo-noir, film review, poster and DVD cover. I watched several film noirs and neo- noirs and spent time annotating these, I found this very useful as I was able to develop my ideas. From this I then went on to plan my film, this took a lot of time as I needed to think about every aspect; film name, character names, plot, props, schedule, storyboard, camera angles, sound, script, screenplay and much more. I think that without this our film would not have been at such a high standard. I also researched for my ancillary text, I did this by looking at other posters and reviews. I also did a lot of mock up of posters until I found a design I liked. As I haven’t writer a proper review before I also spent some time writing two other reviews for films that we have watched and getting feedback so that I can improve my film review techniques.	Audience feedback:
My main product is a film noir; it is called Hard Cash and is approximately 7 minutes long. It consists of both film noir and neo noir (shown mainly through black & white and colour). It has a moving production company logo at the start, a main body and ending credits.	I believe we have met a lot of conventions of film noir however, I also think that we missed a view critical conventions out due to time constraints. One well known convention of film noir is black and white, this is something we know we would do from the start. As well as this our narrative meets the film noir convention; corrupt police, death/murder, investigation and plotting. I think that our narrative is very strong and it fits well in the short amount of time that we had to convey it. As well as this other film noir conventions that we have included are femme fatale (we made this character very dominant and wrote the narrative to centre around her), alcohol, costumes , urban areas, low key lighting and deep shots. We also thought carefully about our locations to make them as suited to the genre as possible. One common film noir convention that I think we missed was shooting in at night this was due to time constraints but I think it would improve our film noir.		I used this to edit Hard Cash (Film Noir) it was on the Mac computers, I think I used this software well and I was more skilled after making the music video as preparation for creating a film noir.		I asked a series of questions to people that fell into our different target audeicnes and filmed their answers. These are the questions that they were asked: Do you know what a film noir is? Would you watch a film noir? Why? What film noir features would appeal to you? After watching a film noir does this appeal to you? What did you like about Hard Cash? What didn’t you like about Hard Cash? Was it suitable for your age range? Would you recommend hard cash to a friend? How could we improve our film noir? Please rate our movie out of 5?
	Neo-noir:		Blogs:
	As well as our film containing film noir conventions we wrote the narrative so that it would also have neo-noir conventions (modern day film noir) we used colour scenes to show this and made sure the femme fatale was wearing lots of red to show her power.		I have been using blogs for a while and I found it very easy to pick up using them again. I have always used blogger and I think it is the best for creating media blogs. As well as doing written posts I have also made sure that I have done some video posts. I think I updated my blog regularly throughout the whole project.
Ancillary text:	Film Review:		Film Cameras:		Target audience:
Poster; I have created a poster that is aimed at one of our five target audiences (middle age men and women) The poster consists of the four main characters placed to suggest a love triangle. We will also be creating a poster aimed at another target audience (teenagers).	All three of the film reviews that I have written contain common film review techniques to try and engage the reader. These include; a catchy opening, who is in the film and what the did, a taster of the plot, what genre  it is, personal opinions, entertaing sentence to conclude, rule of three, rhetorical devices, witty, concise, descriptive and persuasive.		I found using the film cameras very easy as this is the 3rd short film that I have made. However, these where new cameras and took both of us a little while to get used to they were very basic though.		1.Middle-ages men and women because of our plot. There is a married couple, life insurance and the 1950's style is very popular in Fashion today. 2. Crime Drama Fans as there are guns, money, sex, police in our film and the plot is a crime unfolding/crime investigation. 3. Film Noir enthusiasts, this is because it has elements of both Film noir and Neo noir. 4. Teenagers, this is because there are teenage actors and producers, it is a thriller/crime genre and there is a love triangle, which is very popular in teen-movies at the moment.
Film Review; I have decided to do a double page spread for my film review. I have already written two reviews one on a film noir (L.A. Confidential) and the other a neo noir (Brick). This works well as Hard Cash is a combination of both. My film reviews double page spread in the magazine is a noir edition.	Poster:		Digital Cameras:
	My poster contains all the main characters and is aimed at the middle aged men and women target audience so I have tried to portray a love triangle. I have used bold text so that everything stands out and is in colour to meet some neo-noir conventions however I have still met film noir conventions by having the femme fatale the most dominant at the front and also wearing red so that she stands out.		I used my own professional DSLR camera to take the photos for mine our joint poster. I was also able to use the schools studio, I know my way around both of these as I am a photography studio. I think that this helped me get it done quickly, efficiently and to a high standard.
			Photoshop:
			Just like the digital camera I was able to use Photoshop with ease as I have used it several times before. I felt very confident at using Photoshop.
			Publisher:
			I used Publisher for both adding text to the poster and the layout/design of the film review double page spread, again I felt very confident about using publisher as we have used it many times before (creating Magazines at AS)

Joint Film Noir poster

Lucy and I did originally plan to do this poster as a joint poster so that we would have three posters for our film noir however, we have both found that we spent along time on our own personal posters and we don't have time to do another poster together. As well as creating posters we are both creating our own personal film reviews so we have decided that our time would be best spent on them. I really like this poster and I do think its a shame that we didn't have enough time to create it but we also have our own personal posters which are both at a high quality and appeal to two different target audiences.