My Advanced Portfolio Evaluation (Part 1 of 2) - Alex Lloyd

What We Did

For our A2 media coursework, we had a few tasks to complete:

· A short film lasting approximately 5 minutes
· A film poster for our short film
· A film review written in the house style of a chosen review magazine

Our final short was a 6 minute social realism film about a young boy who finds himself neglected from both his parents in life. With his Mum suffering from domestic abuse and his Dad being an alcoholic we see what he gets up to.

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

During the planning and research stages we had to look at conventions in:

· Narrative
· Themes and Issues
· Camerawork
· Camera Movement
· Mise En Scene
· Editing
· Sound
· Character Types
· Representation
· Audience Targeting

We were able to establish how these conventions were used by watching many British social realism films, most of which would have a similar narrative and story to ours. Films we paid close attention to were:

· Eight
· Wasp
· Cubs
· Billy Elliot
· The 400 Blows
· This Is England
· Red Road

We learnt that Social Realism aims to represent the lives of ordinary people in ways that appear very ‘true to life’. They tend to include:

Narrative

· Tends to follow Todorov’s narrative theory being the Three-Act Structure, this includes a Set-Up, Disruption and Resolution. One difference that is typically seen in social realism films is that in the set-up where we first meet the characters, already their lives are not happy.
· Both restricted and unrestricted narration can be created, restricted narration may be caused from the characters keeping something hidden from us or not telling us something important (e.g. In ‘Eight’ we never know how his father died). Unrestricted narration is kept through its camerawork and can be used with help from a voice over.
· The story tends to include day to day problems experienced by the protagonist.
· Not always does the film have to be depressing throughout (see ‘Happy Go Lucky’) but there are always problems the character must resolve.
· Thanks to the relaxation of censorship in the early years of social realism films, characters had sex lives, money worries and social problems. British ‘auteurs’ like Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson dealt with prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, alienation and relationship problems. This is when social realism grew to be seen as the genre that represents life realistically and not such a ‘happily ever after’ story Hollywood films would offer.

Themes and Issues
· Focuses on working class and class issues
· Based on real life issues in time (this may be with class, ethnicity, government etc)

Camerawork
· A lot of subjective camerawork around the main character, this tends to build empathy from the spectator.
· Extreme Long shots are used to show the mise en scene clearly with a lot of establishing shots becoming very effective.
· Long shots in duration, these can enhance the importance of what’s either being seen or heard on screen.
· Manual Focus includes the background being blurred out with the subject in the foreground in focus.

Camera Movement

· Movement can be used to express the feeling and emotions the character may be experiencing. In ‘Wasp’ the camera is hand held and can be quite wobbly, this creates a rushed feeling becoming quite tense in places. The long tracking shot in ‘The 400 Blows’ became very significant to our group, it showed the young boys loneliness.

Mise En Scene

· Gritty, urban settings and decor known for its time
· Natural lighting tends to be used to create realism
· Any props used will be recognisable icons of the time in which the film was set in
· Costume and Hair will be recognised for its time and will connote the status and class of the characters



Editing
· Desaturated colour to enhance the gritty, dirty backgrounds and a depressed, upsetting mood.
· Match on Actions will be used to keep continuity
· Shot/Reverse Shot between characters in conversation
· 180 degree rule will always be kept in order to prevent confusing the audience
· No special effects as these take away the realism

Sound

· Sound is always parallel to what’s on screen, narration is a typical convention being heard through a voice over. This can create empathy and allows the audience to really understand the characters.
· Both diegetic and non diegetic sounds used
· Barely any SFX, Foleys may be used
· Any music used will be well known for the time in which the film was set in
· Sound bridges used in order to keep continuity

Character Types + Representation

· Characters tend to be from unwealthy, working class backgrounds.
· Audience empathise for characters, even through the times where what they may be doing is wrong. In ‘This Is England’ we witness our main character insult a man racially but throughout we still see him as our protagonist.
· The main character tends to be quite inferior and powerless, they may seek help from someone. In all of the films we watched that included a story similar to ours included either a young child or a woman as the main character.

Audience Targeting

· The films we have seen have targeted from 18 to 40 approximately.
· Film literates are always targeted for social realism films.
· A younger audience may be attracted to films such as ‘Cubs’ and ‘Eight’ for example due to the characters and themes whereas ‘Wasp’, ‘This Is England’ and ‘Red Road’ for example would target an older audience who appreciate social realism films.
· Many of the films will have made a poster that may target an urban audience and one that may target a more local audience. One that may target a working class audience and one that may target more of middle class audiences.

Look at a previous post: http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/poster-research-alex-lloyd-jack-storer.html - Showing you how Andrea Arnold targeted different types of audiences through her poster.




This style and genre of film was introduced in the early 1900’s with Director David Lean having a huge part. Making films such as: ‘In Which We Serve’, ‘Brief Encounter’ and ‘Oliver Twist’, they reflect the extent and influence of historical and societal changes across his period. He was well known for his focus on the lives of “ordinary people”.

From ‘Brief Encounter’ to ‘Happy Go Lucky’ social realism has brought Britain many classic films and has become Britain’s richest gift to world cinema. Other Directors we were influenced by during the planning and production stages of our short were:

· Ken Loach (‘Kes’, ‘Looking for Eric’, ‘Sweet 16’)
· Mike Leigh (‘Happy Go Lucky’)
· Stephen Daldry (‘Billy Elliot’, ‘Eight’)
· Francois Truffaut (‘The 400 Blows’)
· Luke Snellin (‘Mixtape’, ‘Patrick’)
· Andrea Arnold (‘Wasp’, ‘Red Road’, ‘Fish Tank’)
· Shane Meadows (‘This Is England’)

The aims that these directors have all had throughout their productions are to represent their characters in a way that will attract their target audience and in a way that will build empathy from the spectator.

Andrea Arnold’s aims in Wasp were to:
· Show the main character, Zoe in all her complexity.
· To create empathy for Zoe, as well as the kids even though what Zoe may be doing is verging on abuse.
· Andrea wanted people to understand her behaviour rather than just condemning it showing how a person’s circumstances and environment influences the way they essentially are. This was her main aim in the production of her award winning short film ‘Wasp’.

Stephen Daldry’s aim was to represent this young boy as a naive child who only wants to follow the footsteps of his father, not knowing that how he may have passed away might have had something to do with the dangers of football supporting. The narration from the child causes the spectator to really feel sorry for him, he never explains how his father died but with what is given to us, we can really piece it together throughout the story.

Each of these directors’s have all used common features and conventions of social realist films whether their films are shorts or full length feature films. Examples are:

· They focus on the working class basing their films in gritty and usually urban working class areas. (Look at ‘Wasp’ – Andrea Arnold)

· The themes and issues are based on real life past events. (Look at ‘This Is England’ – Shane Meadows and how that the issues in the film are particular of the year 1983 with growing unemployment and a hatred for foreign minorities.)

· Lighting is almost always natural with very limited artificial lighting being used. Desaturated colour is edited in to give them a melancholy feel. (Look at ‘Billy Elliot’ – Stephen Daldry)

· They have all used focus to show the characters facial expressions clearly but to also blur out the background making the whole picture seem grittier. (Look at ‘Wasp’ – Andrea Arnold)

· The camera is very rarely still in some films fitting with the mood of the characters, this may be rushed or tense. (Look at ‘Fish Tank’ – Andrea Arnold)

· As mentioned above, the main protagonists of the films tend to be very young, the oldest out of the films I have mentioned is Zoe who would be mid 20’s. Most of the films include a much younger protagonist, this increases empathy to see them in such difficult times at such a young age. It represents how difficult it can be for single, working class parents for example, how difficult it can be to have lost your father at the age of eight for example etc. Many people can relate to these realistic situations and those who can’t are given an insight into how gritty and hard it can be.

(The young protaganist from 'Cubs')


Ways In Which We Have Conformed To The Conventions Of Social Realism

Narrative

- It can be difficult to include the three act structure within a short film of roughly 5 minutes, in a feature film, the set-up will introduce the characters in their everyday life. A confrontation or disruption will then soon occur disrupting this everyday lifestyle, the character will be put upon a challenge of which must be resolved for him to carry on with his life. In our short, we did what many other short film directors have done such as Stephen Daldry with ‘Eight’, we introduced our character and problem at the same time. The first few shots have no dialogue in but show our character allowing the audience to get an idea that our film is about a young boy. Then when the problem is introduced through the voice over of our child, the audience will understand that it is his father causing all the misery.
- Our story puts our protagonist in a neglected position, the spectator can empathise.
- Unrestricted narration is kept through the voice over of Milo, the spectator is omniscient throughout the film.
- The problem is resolved in the final few shots of the film, “but that’s in the past, it’s just me and mum now” – Milo explains to us that now his Dad has left, his problems are in the past. This gives closure on the situation for the audience finishing off on a high.

Themes and Issues

- Isolation, Neglection, Alcoholism, Domestic Abuse – These are all problems that occur across the country in many young people’s lives. (Look at 'Wasp', 'Fish Tank')
- Evidence of how the audience will understand these are the issues is by the dominant voice over, “I’ve seen him hit her, he hits her nearly every day”. These become quite powerful words being used by a young child.

Camerawork

- Our camerawork has become very successful being both creative and conformist. We have used the typical extreme long shots seen in many social realist films, these establishing shots help show the class of our family through their environment. In our film, the home in which Milo lives in also finds itself isolated surrounded by nothing but countryside, this enhances the loneliness of Milo.
- Subjective camerawork is used to keep the empathy towards our young character, this is done through mid shots and close ups where the spectator can analyse his mood through facial expressions.
- We have included many long shots in duration, the shots with the most length are the most important shots due to both what is seen on screen and what is being said on the voice over. One example of this is the shot in which his parents are arguing behind him, in this Milo tells us what is wrong in his life, at the same time we can empathise for him due to his facial expressions.
- As Director, my favourite part of filming was the use of manual focus. This was new to me as I did not use it within my foundation portfolio, for our social realism film I felt it has become very important. It was noticed of being a big convention of British social realism, films such as ‘Wasp’, ‘Fish Tank’, ‘Eight’ and ‘Cubs’ all use it. The subject tends to be in the foreground in focus with the background out of focus, we used this focusing in the shot with Milo’s parents arguing in the background, one reason for this was to conform to the convention but another was to hide their identity. This hidden identity creates a ‘criminal’ effect, it is similar to what is seen on programmes such as ‘crime watch’ where the face of the criminal has been blurred. This loss of identity may create tension for the spectator.
- We also used this focus on a shot where the focus is on some leaves in the foreground, it is then noticed that the house is in the background, this enhances the fact that the house is surrounded by forest land but is also quite a creative shot in my opinion and may attract film literates.
- One of our intentions was to keep the camerawork quite simple, there doesn’t tend to be a huge variety of shot sizes and angles used within our short social realism as this may distract the audience from empathising from the character for example, of which is a crucial point to any social realist film. The camerawork was kept simple using mainly eye level angle shots and mid-shots.

Camera Movement

- Camera work was kept plain and simple but camera movement on the other hand had to be more creative, we did use a lot of still shots close up to the character so that his emotions could be recognised. The shots we included with movement in turned out to be our most attractive shots to viewers, the long tracking shot seen 3:43 seconds into the film turned out to be our audience’s favourite shot.
- Other shots would be hand held and may seem quite wobbly, this is something we learnt not to be accidental but purposely used (look at ‘Fish Tank’ – Andrea Arnold). The wobbly effect is barely noticeable and therefore doesn’t take away the audience’s attention, in my opinion it prevents boredom as a film with only still shots would become very boring. It also creates realism and can put the spectator there with the character as if he is moving with Milo.



Mise En Scene


- Detailed Mise En Scene for any social realism is crucial but particually in our film as it is challenging conventions by using a middle class family as in Secrets and Lies - Mike Leight, we included lots of bottles and cans to connote alcoholism.
- Props such as photo’s, candles, cereal and toothpaste etc give it that homely atmosphere and creates realism
- The settings show a lot of countryside surrounding the home enhancing Milo’s isolation from any friends.
- Decor is middle class, it is a warm, cosy home that is at war with the mess Milo’s father is causing it to have.
- The costume of Milo sees him as a messy, young boy who doesn’t seem to have been treated with fashionable clothes and an expensive haircut. It fits in with the countryside and distance he has away from any town centre.
- The top he goes out in throughout is stripy, this is so in the extreme long shots and shots of him in the tree, he is easily noticeable within the shot.
- Composition of the subject and framing in shot shows him rarely in the centre, this prevents it from looking very basic and amateur like but can also make him look smaller in the picture. Look at ‘Wasp’, Zoe’s face is seen a lot to the side of the frame with the background blurred out.

Editing

- Desaturated colour has been edited in throughout
- Match on actions used to create continuity – First scene in which Milo walks into kitchen and makes breakfast.

Sound

- Sound is very important for our film, the voice over is the most dominant type of sound used.
- Non-Diegetic sound includes stringed instruments playing in a minor key, this is parallel music creating a sad mood.
- No SFX used
- Only one Foley used (Alarm clock in second shot) – The tracking shot originally had the sound of a car driving in the rushes, we wondered whether to take all the sound off and have Foleys of Milo running and breathing, in the end we chose to take all the sound off and have nothing but the voice over and non diegetic music playing. This works a lot better as I think that if we were to include Foleys as well, there would be too much sound for the spectator to concentrate fully on what Milo is saying.
- Diegetic sound used such as cupboard doors opening and closing, birds singing. This keeps the realism and can put the audience in Milo’s position as if they are there with him.
- The sudden ‘smash’ of the bottle as it hits the floor (shot 16) is diegetic ‘on-screen’ sound. We cut out the non diegetic suddenly along with the bottle ‘smashing’ making it seem to interrupt everything in the film at that point, it connotes how loud and dangerous things can be around Milo’s home. After the sound everything is silent and Milo’s voice over carries on.
- Sound bridges are used to keep continuity between two shots, we have used a lot of sound bridges and have been able to do it a lot easier due to most of the sound coming from a voice over. A Good example of our sound bridging is where we can begin to hear the parents arguing whilst watching a bird eating, this puts us with the sound of anger whilst looking at a relaxing picture and the clash between the two can be noticed. The fact that they don’t contrast will connote the problem in Milo’s life.

Character Types + Representation

- After our planning and research into other social realist shorts, we always knew that we wanted a young actor to play the lead role, it being quite a typical convention of this genre. To see such young people put in difficult situations can easily be empathised for by any spectator.
- Representation is an important convention of social realism, in order to build empathy for a character he/she must be represented well. Once we found our actor (Milo Price) we saw how easy it was to represent this boy as an isolated, upset little boy who was never content in life not being able to experience loving and caring parents. This was easily represented through good acting and our camerawork could easily show the facial expressions and body language of our protagonist.
- We never fully see the Mum and Dad of Milo, only ever having them blurred out in shot. Despite this the spectator will easily place the Dad as the antagonist of the film, they know this through dialogue but also through body language between the Mum and Dad, although they are blurred out you can still connote this character is an alcoholic and lazy man, the way he stumbles in to the doorway connotes this.
- One of our main aims was to show that problems such as neglection and domestic abuse do not only occur in working class settings, we have represented our characters as a middles class family through settings, décor, props and clothing well. Although the Dad is a drunk, you can still analyse that he wears a nice, long, black coat.

Audience Targeting

- The certificate rating was originally planned to be 15, if you refer back to one of our past posts on our final certificate rating decision you will find out that we were able to reduce it down to a 12. Looking at audience feedback a lot of our viewers who have given in good feedback have turned out to be under 15. “This is so good, I love how the child narrates it” – Evie Chandler – 14 yrs. “This is so good, love how you saw the lad older at the end and how u do not really expect that type of story from the average day begging, really good, sweet film.” – Alana Stabile – 14 yrs.


- Overall we are targeting a mixed sex audience between 12-40.
- Film Literates
- Enjoy Social Realism films
- Both working class and middle class would enjoy our film.


Inspirational Styles and Shots

We were inspired by many Directors and the creative shots they may have used in their social realist films.

• ‘Billy Elliot’ – Directed by Stephen Daldry - http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/02/billy-elliot-inspiration-alex-lloyd.html - We were inspired by this shot as the facial expressions could easily be read whilst the character was doing something typically done by children. With our use of it we used very bleak and serious facial expressions to connote how lonely Milo felt on the trampoline alone. “None of the games we played were as fun at home on my own”.




• ‘The 400 Blows’ – Directed by Francois Truffaut - http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/01/inspiration-jack-storer-and-abi-black.html - Our version of this long tracking shot really catches Milo at a time where he escapes from all the troubles at home, his body language and speed shows how eager he is to get to his hiding place, his expressions connote how angry he is with it all. We managed to produce this shot with Jack filming from the boot of my car, we drove down a quiet road, rarely used and tested it for safety precautions beforehand.
  



• ‘Wasp’ – Directed by Andrea Arnold – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN6BSVl1zQY - Andrea uses a lot of manual focusing to blur out the background of her shots, this keeps a gritty feeling to it but keeps us engaging with the character.
  


• ‘Mixtape’ – Directed by Luke Snellin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exFWurXtsU4 Luke became a huge inspiration throughout my production, his short film is a great example of using focus to blur out the background and also slow motion to capture the body language and expressions of the main character. (Mixtape - Virgin Media Shorts Winner
  
  
  
  Challenging Forms Of This Genre
  
  Many people may believe all social realism films will include a tough, dirty storyline in a gritty environment. Mike Leigh’s ‘Happy Go Lucky’ proved that a social realism can not only include drama but comedy with his always optimistic female lead ‘Poppy’.
  
  Ways In Which We Challenged The Genre
  
  Our film includes a lot of the typical conventions seen in British social realist films today, one convention we did challenge was the class. For our short we represented a middle class family, this can be connoted from the settings and home in which they live in. Our main intention in the process of planning our film was to show that problems such as isolation, neglection, alcoholism and domestic abuse can occur outside of the working class. The spectator is put with a family who are living in quite decent conditions with a lot of beautiful countryside surroundings, it is not the setting that is causing the troubles in this film but our characters, the dad.
  
  - This challenging style to the narrative is a way of also broadening our target audience allowing us to attract more of a middle class audience as well as those in working class.

My Advanced Portfolio Evaluation (Part 2 of 2) - Alex Lloyd

Implications With Our Final Production Of ‘Milo’
What have you learned from your audience feedback?

· Organisation is key when producing any type of film with a restricted time limit. Our organisation wasn’t great and in the end caused us to have to re shoot a couple of scenes. We found it difficult getting all members of the group together to film and edit due to other engagements.

· Milo unfortunately had a busy schedule throughout the filming stages, this gave us an even smaller space to film in within two weeks. We managed to successfully fit in all the filming in the end but it could have been done a lot easier if we had been more organised with timetables.

· I have conducted audience feedback and what has come up on numerous occasions by those who are 20+ years old is the fact that our monologue could be read wrongly in one of the scenes. “They don’t argue and love each other” is said when Milo describes his friends parents, the way this is read could interpret that the parents do not love each other either. If we could do this again we would have it as: “They don’t argue and they love each other”.

· Sound in some shots does not quite flow, the ambient sound in some shots cuts with the image and so it is recognised that the shot has been cut.

· With our audience feedback, we found that some viewers believed the monologue waffles a little bit towards the end and could have perhaps been reduced.

· The scene in which ‘Milo’ morphs to his older self has finished up quite short, It would have been better if we could have had a few more shots of our older ‘Milo’ and a little more for him to say. He looks as if it has been rushed at the end for this reason.

2/ How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

We all took part in planning the desing of both review and posters, we came to a group decision on whose initial ideas we would use for each. Caroline's poster was edited to fit our final and the review was based around all our ideas. Jack and Abi worked on the Poster whilst Caroline and I then designed the review.

POSTER

After a lot of research on short film posters, we found that all of them connote the film as being low budget which is obvious due to the template of the poster, the image used, the ratings etc.

A look into social realism film posters gave us conventions such as typically being landscape view. Examples of this are ‘This Is England’, ‘Fish Tank’ and ‘Mixtape’.

· Our final poster is landscape, this allowed us to have an image to the side of the poster and then gave us plenty of space for text on the other side.

· The image we used for our main poster is a shot in the film (the shot in which Milo eats his breakfast with the parents in the background). We only wanted Milo in the poster. We designed our image on photoshop taking the shot from our film and drawing around it, this cartoon like poster makes it seem very unique as well as low budget.

· The font we used for our title as well as actors, ‘directed by’ and catch line is a childish handwriting font we found on the internet. The image and font together represents who our main character is and how old he is. The audience can tell the film is going to be about a boy.

· We never wanted too many colours in the poster, it was our aim to stand out the alcohol bottle against the rest of the image. This represents the themes and issues within the film connoting alcoholism.

· We included one logo (Festival De Cannes), this is to entice the audience into watching it believing it must be quite good to be nominated into a festival. Also this would attract film literates.

· We wanted a quote from a review on the poster also, we thought there wouldn’t be one better than taking a quote out of the review we made for our short film. ‘Creative, Captivating and Compelling’, the alliteration conforms to the Little White Lies house style language.

I believe our poster represents the film very well and gives the audience an idea of what it’s about. It is our cartoon like image that would really make it stand out from a group of posters being very innovative.

REVIEW

Referring back to a past post, I have pointed out all the typical conventions and styles used and included in each film review. - http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/initial-review-ideas-alex-lloyd.html

· Our image takes up a little less than half the page, something we found to be done a lot in LWL reviews. Again we used the image of Milo at the breakfast table as this is one of our most important shots in the film.

· The house style and language was analysed and we found LWL tended to use complex language. For our review we used many complex words such as ‘copacetic’ and ‘pragmatic’.

· A lot of adjectives are used to describe the film such as ‘bitter’ and ‘bleak’.

· Alliteration is used – ‘sombre secret’.

· Many puns are used to describe the film, examples of this are ‘definitely one that strikes a hit’, ‘drenched with the stark realities of everyday life’, ‘pulls at your heartstrings’.

· There are many evaluative comments used. ‘You can come to a conclusion regarding the final scene for yourselves when watching the film but it may not be everybody’s cup of tea’.

· At the end of our review we have included a convention very typically seen in LWL’s which is a rating out of 5 for ‘Anticipation’, ‘Enjoyment’ and ‘In Retrospect’.

Aspects of the film we chose to talk about in the review included the most important scene in which the parents are arguing, hence why we used the image for the review. This represents the film well of being social realism and should attract any social realism fans.

The language we used represents the film of being a typical social realism in the way that it will be bleak and upsetting but resolves in some way at the end.

In my opinion the poster and review would have the same audience, Little White Lies targets a mixed sex (more male) ranging from 15-40, I believe our poster could attract this age also with its quote, award and uniqueness.

Our Film As Feature Film

From the beginning when planning our review, we had always wanted our short film to be the featured film of the magazine. We have treated it this way and have done a lot of extra work showing that we have really become familiar with the house style and format of LWL’s.
Examples of our work are:

http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/milo-double-page-spread-design-alex.html - Double Page Spread

http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/credits-little-white-lies-jack-storer.html - Credits of the Magazine

http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/little-white-lies-research-caroline.html - Chapter 1 Page



Previous films with their own issues include: 'Kick Ass', 'The Road', 'Where The Wild Things Are' and 'This Is England'.

We knew that no shorts have ever been the feature film of LWL, but as they have featured a lot of social realism's we thought it would be the closest magazine to doing this.




3/ What have you learned from audience feedback?

I have explained what I have learnt from our audience feedback in the implications part of question 1.
If I were to do the film again, the changes I would make are:

· Cutting down the monologue, one of our key viewers believed it waffled on a little and got a tiny bit boring towards the end, for us to have a very powerful ending it may be better if we could cut down the ‘McDonald’s’ part of the monologue. Although I do believe this helps to signify how disappointed he is with the fact his Dad never took him and how that without him, problems like this won’t occur again.
· I would then include more monologue, of which our older Milo will say, some of our audience have come back saying it looks a little rushed towards the end with only a few shots of our older Milo. We did a good job in morphing the images between our young Milo and older Milo as well as morphing the sound of them both speaking too, what would have been better is if we could have started this process earlier on so that the change really stands out.
· Lighting was an implication and not enough of it was used in some scenes such as the scene in which he takes his shoes off. We wanted to use as much natural lighting as possible but in places like this, it is admitted that it looks a little too dark in some shots.

Overall I have learnt that our group has successfully produced a powerful social realist film, engaging with the audience and building empathy right from the start.

We conducted our audience feedback using many sites including:
· Facebook
· Twitter
· MSN
· E-mail


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

Throughout the production stages of each of our tasks, we used:

• HVR-HD1000U shoulder-mount HDV Camera – This is a high definition, wide screen camera giving us a very professional quality. We were able to use manual focus easily as well as a smooth slow motion fitted in with the camera. In comparison to my foundation production, ‘Milo’ has a much better picture quality and has used many more creative shots and styles.

• Final Cut Pro – This is industry software used in the production of many professional feature films today. Last year I used I-Movie showing how much stronger Final Cut Pro has turned out to be. My reason for using Final Cut Pro was the way it is set out and the better transitions and titles it offers. Something we were able to do this year was edit the sound in Final Cut Pro rather than having to export our movie to Garage band. This became a lot easier for us and allowed us to go back and improve our sound at any point.

• We used many other contraptions such as a voice recorder to record our monologue of Milo, as well as our actor who plays the ‘dad’ as he shows off to his friends in the kitchen.

Throughout the planning and research stages we had lots of help from the internet using sites such as:

•Short Film Central - http://www.shortfilmcentral.com/
•BBC Film Network - http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/category/drama/page/4
•Virgin Media Shorts - http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk//
•BBFC - http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

These helped us to research other short films and find the conventions for the genre we chose. We were also able to find information on censorship etc.

For the poster we were able to take on set photos with the college’s digital camera.
We then installed our chosen favourite photo and cartoonised it on Adobe Photoshop. Again Photoshop is a professional piece of software.
We used photoshop to design the template of our review also making it a very easy process. To research into the house style of Little White Lies' reviews we used their home site: http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/

With today’s web and social networking sites we were easily able to distribute our film to many volunteering viewers using sites such as Facebook etc.

Final Review - Alex Lloyd, Abi Black, Caroline Robertson and Jack Storer

This is the final review for our short film 'Milo', as you can see we have followed the typical house style of the layout and language used in Little White Lies. We have set it out as if Milo is the featured film of the magazine hence why we have included a vodka bottle by the page number and a scribbled desgin of a tree, all referring to Milo.

Final Poster - Alex Lloyd, Abi Black, Caroline Robertson and Jack Storer

This is our final poster for 'Milo'.

Audience Feedback

I have made a group on Facebook that has helped us to receive a lot of vital feedback, I will use this to help me with my evaluation.

Some good comments include:

Elizabeth Archer (23yrs) - Wow Alex I really enjoyed it. You've got some great creative shots in there, the soundtrack is amazing, and I like the continual voiceover with no speech actually on screen. The acting is great and the shot of him eating his coco pops very original and in depth - it conveys a lot of information about the story in that ...1 shot which is a really useful tool in a short film.

Caroline Layzell (45yrs) - Well done Alex! Really liked it..especially the bit with the boy running down the road. Got the sense of his loneliness and separation from his dad and the vulnerability of his mum. The boy was really good and liked the idea of seeing him years later as the older boy.

Luke Graham (19yrs) - Really good man, it got me watching till the end :) loved some of the shots: arguing parents out of focus behind the little boy, closing the shutter to end it and using a car (i guess, it was a car rite) to track him running. Really interesting and the continuity was near perfect. Wouldnt be suprised if u got an A :D m...y only criticism would be lack of lighting and nearer the end the child narration could of been cut down a bit, as he seemed to waffle, so when he did talk it would be more powerful. Hope that helps for your evaluation mate, really impressed,

Max Crawley-Moore (17yrs) - Just watched it, is sick. love the narration by the boy and love the jump to older. well done!

Certificate Rating - Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer and Caroline Robertson

We have had a discussion on what certificate rating we would have for our short film, we have always planned to target our film towards a late teen audience, film literates who enjoy social realism films. We planned to certify our short as a 15 but after much discussion we have realised that in BBFC's opinion it would be seen differently. "Moderate language is allowed. The use of strong language (for example 'fuck') must be infrequent." - BBFC. This was on their definition of a '12' rating, we wanted to know what ratings would stand for this language due to the word 'fuck' being heard once throughout the short, now that we know a '12' can include this language we have rethought our certification.

Looking at our audience feedback, much of the useful information and reviews we have received are from those younger than '15'. This gives us more evidence in why we should have our film as a '12'.

Initial Review Ideas - Alex Lloyd

As you can see I have designed the template of the review in a similar way to the Little White Lies review with the image of the film taking up almost 50% of the page. We have planned for Milo's review to be a full page review and have looked at many of Little White Lies reviews in order to analyse what typical conventions are used in each.

The house style of Little White Lies review layout always includes a Box with 'Directed By' and 'Starring' written in and a smaller box with 'Released' in. The colours of these boxes always contrast and are colours that may represent the featured film of the magazine, in the case below they are pink and green for 'This Is England'.

• The reviews always give a rating out of 5 for 'Anticipation', 'Enjoyment' and 'Retrospect', these ratings are found at the end of the articles.
• In the bottom right corner of the page there is always a page number next to a specific logo for the feature film, again it may represent the film or be an object that is seen and noticed of being in the film. For the 'This Is England' issue, the logo is a tear drop, this may due to the sadness shown throughout the film.
• There is always a 4 column text layout.
• Title in Capitals - box infill in contrasting colour.
• First line in first column in Bold.
• The text is always in a font similar to Ariel.
• In most of the reviews there are typographical effects seen throughout the magazine, these may be hand drawn images/graphics and are always related to the feature film. For example, in the 'Where The Wild Things Are' issue, there are hand drawn monsters and sketches seen on most pages within the magazine.

For my initial idea, I made sure I followed all of these conventions adding some logos and colours that represent our film. I have made the boxes green and light blue to connote the green countryside and the blue sky seen in our short. They also contrast quite well. The logo I would include at the bottom by the page number is a bottle of alcohol, this is an icon of our film with the key theme of alcoholism. We have discussed what typograhical effects would be included if our film was the featured film of the magazine and have come up with many ideas. We can see them being hand drawn sketches of tree's, tears and alcohol bottles. These conventions would be kept throughout the magazine.

FINAL FILM - group

Poster Research - Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black

In class our group made a textual analysis on the film posters for 'Fish Tank'. Fish Tank is a 2009 film directed by Andrea Arnold, well recognised for 'Red Road'. Fish Tank won the Jury Prize at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival and also won the 2010 BAFTA for Best British Film.

The film was released with two posters, one portrait and one landscape.

As you can see this is the portrait poster for 'Fish Tank', we believe this would have been used to attract a more Unisex audience, film literates, middle class and educated.

From this poster we analysed that it would a powerful narrative. The representation of this character portrays her as being quite rebellious due to her costume wearing a hoody. Her body language connotes that she has independence and is strong and defiant.

This film is a typical British film being a gritty, social realism film. But from this poster it can connote a Street Dancing, Teen Movie genre due to the colour and composition.

In comparison to the second poster, we believe this would attract more of an urban, city audience, not necessarily middle class. It is the offical US poster and most US audiences are used to happy, feel good films. If the second poster was used to advertise the film within countries such as the US, it may not have attracted such a huge audience.

This is the second poster we analysed, this time in landscape.

Due to the facial expressions, composition and setting, we analysed that the narrative would have more of a depressing storyline full of isolation, hence why it would not suit a US audience. The decor and costume connotes that the characters may well be all working class.

Our character is this time represented as a lone, isolated female. The clothes and jewellery she wears can seem 'chav' like, again from a working class status.

We believe this poster can be easily identified as being a poster for a social realism film due to the gritty surroundings our character is in. Icons such as the heart on the wall suggest love is a theme within this film. As for its target audience, the second poster may well attract more of a female based audience due to the colouring and character representation.

Yet an older audience may well be attracted to the second poster due to newspaper ratings, quotes and awards mentioned.

Finished Film - Roles Throughout - Alex Lloyd

We have now completed our film using Final Cut Pro and Garageband, one query we have is to whether we should desaturate the colour throughout the piece but whether or not it will make that much difference, we are not sure yet.

From the beginning we have all put in a lot of effort into the production of 'Milo'. The roles throughout have been as follows:

Narrative Creators: Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black
Storyboard Artists: Alex Lloyd and Abi Black
Location Scouts: Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black
Director: Alex Lloyd
Camerawork: Alex Lloyd and Jack Storer
Prop Managers: Alex Lloyd, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black
Lighting Manager: Caroline Robertson
Editors: Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer and Caroline Robertson
Sound: Alex Lloyd and Caroline Robertson
Script Writers: Caroline Robertson and Abi Black
Photographers: Alex Lloyd, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black
Voice Recordist: Alex Lloyd
Titles: Alex Lloyd

Actors: Milo Price, Jack Price
Extras: Megan Boyd, Dom Harper

Milo Double Page Spread Design - Alex Lloyd

For further research Jack and I found that a unique convention 'Little White Lies' includes in all of its magazines was to include a double page spread design relating to its feature film. This double page spread would be the first two pages of the magazine, Jack and I came up with the idea in designing our own version of this, we found 3 images would be used and then repeated throughout the design, these images always have importance within its feature film. For our design we felt it would be best to show an alcohol bottle, a tree and our boy. Jack then went off and came back with this (shown above). We are very pleased with this template and have managed to include a quote from our film also, this quote is the first sentence said by our main character. If we were to feature within 'Little White Lies', this is what we would have in mind for being included on the two first pages.