My final evaluation of my A2 course

1. Story
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My main inspiration for my story was from a multitude of thrillers such as ‘Narco’ and ‘Top Boy’ which focus
on the dealing of riches between gangs. I believe that by following a generic character motive like this my
audience will be able to follow the story with ease, despite other conventions being challenged.
I did however decide to follow a narrative which is different from that of many crime thrillers. In my research I
studied how Italian director introduced his main characters into a film. In both ‘the Good, the Bad and the
Ugly’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ a set of characters are introduced briefly, then murdered by a
more dominant character in the film. In each instance this event is delivered in a standoff styled event, with
characters facing one another until a gun is drawn and fired.
I believe that my story was a success and the outcome is clear and easy to follow. My biggest criticism of
the story is that the open ending has left some audiences unsatisfied or confused. The introduction and
slight development of characters however was well received by audiences and I personally feel that I was
able to present my characters and their actions within the film as I had intended.

2. Sound
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I began my research into sound in film by exploring the use of music in classic thrillers, Tarantino’s films in
particular. Tarantino notoriously contrasts the violence and conflict being displayed on screen with well timed
music which is often associated with peace and love. This convention offers a more compelling scene of conflict
and broadens the effect of the music to almost give it another meaning which is solely relevant to that scene. I
decided this was a convention I wished to use in my film.
I explored the Motown genre of music as that is known for expressing romance. After testing multiple songs in
the editing process I decided that Smokey Robinson’s ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me’ was perfect for the
interrogation scene. Lyrically music seemed appropriate, yet it Robinson’s delivery of the lines creates a tone
which directly conflicts with the violence being expressed on-screen.
One other diegetic song is used in the film and is being played from Winston’s car stereo. The idea of using a
song in this scene came later in the writing process as after the first few film drafts I decided that Winston
needed further detail, and presenting a song he would listen to was my way of doing this. I chose the song ‘Clint
Eastwood’ by the Gorillaz mostly due to it’s references to the films of Sergio Leone who I had already taken great
inspiration from. I therefore felt that this song choice was authentic within the film.
I decided that the sound effects used in my film should be authentic and obey those used in generic crime-
thrillers. I therefore used the website ‘Soundbible’ to collect all the sound effects I would need in post-production.

3. Mise-en-scene
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When planning my shots for filming I decided that I would follow the generic codes and conventions
of mise-en-scene in ‘Field of Snakes’. This includes using low angles on more dominant characters,
long-shots for establishing shots, and closeups to draw attention to expression or a significant object.
Although not planned in my initial character designs and script, I later wished to avoid using colour
and other forms of mise-en-scene to connote morals of characters. Therefore I decided to dress the
antagonist in black clothing and have the only character wearing white be killed in the first two
minutes. I furthered this by dressing the antagonist in the lightest clothing to subvert the common
stereotype that ‘bad guys’ wear black. This encourages the audience to question who they should
support throughout the film, and obscures the roles theorised in Propp’s character theory.
Despite this due to character screen-time and the overall narrative it can still era argued that various
characters fall into Propp’s theory.
The prop’s, accents, vocabulary, costumes, and setting all adhere to typical thrillers set in London.
The all-male cast is also generic of a crime-thriller, however this was a result of actor availability and
if more female actors were available I may have considered changing roles.

4. Typography
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The typography of my poster has changed multiple times over the course. Initially I wanted a classic
Western style font to reinforce the Western influence to this film. From this I began to explore the
typography of Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ and Sergio Leone’s ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’.
However, after trailing these fonts with my poster and title sequences I decided that they were too
obscure and looked misplaced.
Following from this, I explored the fonts of other thrillers genres such as horror-thriller and
psychedelic-thriller. These fonts seemed far more interesting due to their sharp edges and blood-
like textures. I decided that this would fit nicely as my thriller does contain violence and fear despite
not being a horror.
I finalised the typography by adding a black shadow to the text on the poster which is a convention
used in the film ‘Django’. I therefore consider this font to be a generic hybrid of multiple thriller
genres, much like my film.

5. Film review
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For my film review I took heavy inspiration from magazine-based film review in terms of formatting and style. I found the presentation of ones in
magazines such as Empire and Total Film to be very tidy and easy to navigate. I therefore did not challenge the conventions of that form of review
much, however I did take inspiration from other forms of reviews.
As I use YouTube for a lot of film news and reviews, it made sense to criticise the film in the way a YouTube-based film reviewer would. I therefore
decided to write my analysis with knowledge gained from that format, although after comparing with the magazine articles, the content is very
similar.
I do not believe I have challenged this format of film reviewing, but I don’t feel that is particularly negative as film reviews are not expected to be or
praised for being creative. I think approaching this task with a wide knowledge of generic conventions and then enforcing them was a good way to
do it.

6. Film poster
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When first planning my poster I analysed multiple posters from both the
crime-thriller and short film genre. However, as my main product developed,
I decided I wanted to utilise some Western conventions in my poster as well
as my short film.
Therefore I have maintained some conventions of crime thriller posters but
given it a Western theme. I have utilised conventions such as the large, bold
font and plain background which appears in generic crime-thriller posters,
but adapted the typography and background texture to be representative of a
Western-style ‘wanted’ poster.
This use of hybridisation creates expectations for the film to include both
crime-thriller and Western elements, which it does. However the ‘wanted
poster’ design is arguably too dominant and some audiences may view the
poster and expect a generic Western, despite the subtle elements of other
genres.
Overall I think this use of hybridising multiple thrilling genres has the
potential to become an overall more thrilling product, despite my execution
not being as thrilling as it could have been.
One generic convention of most posters which I left out was a tagline or
release date. I feel that this is somewhat unnecessary for a short film and is
not included in posters for a lot of other short films, only for feature-length
movies.

7.
How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary tasks?
Despite having rough plans for what my ancillary tasks would include, I decided to develop them too much until my main product was near
completion. This enabled me to ensure that each of my ancillary tasks would reflect and reinforce the ideas and tones expressed in my main
product. I believe this was well achieved in the sense that each product uses the same typography, colour scheme and tonal feel.
The main problem in terms of consistency between products is the fact that Winston and Jimmy are wearing different clothes in the poster to the
ones in the short film. This could have been avoided by recreating the shot in later reshoots, however we did not get time to recreate this shot.

8. Review
How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary tasks?
I wrote and designed my review after already planning most of my film in order to get a clear understanding of what to write about in the final draft of
the review. I have been back to the review multiple times to update shots from filming as well as changing the text in order to address strengths,
weaknesses and plot points of my film.
I feel that now the review acts almost as a teaser to the film much like many other reviews- something a consumer can read in order to get an
understanding of what they are going to to watch without it being spoiled.
I therefore believe my execution of this task was good although I do think further improvement could have been made to format the review in such a
way that it could be inserted into a magazine. For example, page numbers and social media links could have been inserted at the footer and sides
of the document in order to secure authenticity.
Due to reviews not directly being a product of the director, I did not format the review to look similar to my poster as a magazine company wouldn’t
do that either. They instead would format the text and boarders to reflect the company’s brand. I did however use the same typography for the title
as I had seen that in other reviews during my research stage.

9. Poster
How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary tasks?
I consider the main purpose of my poster to be advertising my main task. Therefore I have decided to design it to reflect the tone and aesthetic of
my film. By taking heavy inspiration from the Western genre it is clear that my film will contain Western elements. I have also chosen a shot which
includes both Winston and Jimmy, the two characters I consider to be most important to the short film.
As mentioned before, I failed to acquire an updated shot of Winston in control of Jimmy. Therefore there is some loss in continuity between these
two products, lessening their effectiveness as a whole. I considered using another image but believe the tone created with the current image is
exactly what I had intended when designing the poster.
Whilst creating this poster I did not view the situation displayed to be a spoiler, however can respect how some may view the conflict established to
be a spoiler as it is a main plot point.

10. Research feedback
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I conducted this survey during the research stage of this course. I decided that in order to plan efficiently I
would need a good understanding of what my audience would want from a thriller.
From these results I was able to plan my short film in a way that challenge some generic conventions whilst
still creating a media product that the my audience would enjoy. I reflected back on this research frequently
in each stage of production in order to ensure my film adhered to at least most of what the mass audience
asked for.
In order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of these results I could have collected more results,
collected results from a wider audience, or asked more questions to aid the rest of my production.
The most influential results acquired from this survey were: guns, drugs and violence are typically featured
in crime-thrillers; my film should adhere to the 15 age-rating restrictions; it should be uploaded to YouTube;
the majority of my audience is young males.
I collected these results
through both the website
‘SurveyMonkey’ and paper-
based handouts.

11. Further feedback
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Following on from my initial draft I frequently briefed ideas and screened further drafts to friends, family, teachers and classmates. I found the
results of each screening to be extremely beneficial as by taking feedback I was able to improve on the film’s flaws each time I reshot or re-edited. I
find this feedback invaluable as it resulted in an extreme rise in quality between my first draft and final cut, each draft improving greatly.
Here are some of the most valuable individual pieces of criticism which have significantly furthered my ability in filmmaking:
- “Change filter between environments to exaggerated divide” (flashback)
- “Re-write first sequence to make dialogue clearer”
- “Make interrogation scene brighter”
- “Music is too loud”
Although each of these comments seem simple and obvious, each little improvement helps and when I was editing for hours at a time, it was easy
to miss some flaws as I became so used to them. Lots of people criticised the lighting and sound which on my laptop was fine, but when presented
in the classroom there were significant changes in quality. In order to improve this I screened the film multiple times in class with different edits in
order to find a good balance of both colour grading and volume.

12. Planning and research
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout my planning and research stage I mostly began each piece of research through
an internet based format. For example, when deciding which films to analyse for inspiration I
would often search for thrillers and short films through websites such as ‘Google’, ‘YouTube’
and ‘IMDB’. These websites contain many resources which were able to both expand my
knowledge of filmmaking and provide media which inspired me to plan multiple aspects of
each of my tasks. ‘YouTube’ in particular contains many productions from previous A-level
students and which granted me a rough idea of what I was aiming to produce.
I used the website ‘SurveyMonkey’ to collect the majority of my initial feedback which
kickstarted my planning stage. Moreover, in order to gain a large amount of results I shared
the survey on multiple platforms of social media.
Another website I used was ‘Celtx’ which provides resources to aid script writing in a
professional format.
I also briefly used iMovie when creating my animatic. This enabled me to visualise how my
planned short film would look, I edited the animatic multiple times until I was happy that the
shots flowed well together within the narrative. This also developed my ability to use the
software which became essential when editing my final product.

13. Filming
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
When filming my short film I used a basic range of media technologies:
DSLR camera
Microphone
Tripod
I used only this equipment as I did not require any complex shots, each shot utilised steady-cam
other than one tracking shot. We had trialled the tracking shot before using a dolly, but the
camera did not move fast enough to pick up the intended shot. A more suitable piece of
equipment would have been a gamble but that was not in my price range.
The DSLR camera was the same one I had used in my AS course so I already had a brief
understanding of how it worked. Throughout filming I expanded on this ability as I learnt how to
navigate through the settings. Unfortunately, as I was borrowing this piece of equipment from a
friend, I was not able to test it much before using it, so planned my shot list to only include basic
shots that I knew how to perform.
The tripod was extremely useful as it did enabled me to get multiple steady shots which aided
continuity as well as the flow and professionalism of my short film. It was easy to adjust and I
think that without it my film would be of much lower quality.
The mic, although not perfect, was good enough to record the sound which I would fix during
editing. An easy piece of equipment to use which is always necessary for filming. If I continue to
film however, I will invest in a higher quality microphone in order to improve on sound quality.

14. Editing
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I performed all of my editing on using the free software ‘iMovie’. I had
initially planned on using ‘Adobe Premier Pro’, but after using iMovie to
produce my animatic I decided it would be good enough to edit my film on.
Unfortunately I did not have experience on iMovie before A2, so decided to
watch various YouTube tutorials before and throughout editing to develop
my ability. This was very frequent as the ‘help’ menu for iMovie is very
limited, despite the program’s potential.
The main tool I used from iMovie were the ‘cutting’ tool to reduce the time
of some clips and match them with others to maintain good match-on-
action. Furthering this I was able to reduce background sound significantly
and colour-grade each clip in order to improve quality of both sound and
visuals.
I inserted multiple soundbites and visual effects from the website
‘Soundbible' which were easy to download and insert into various shots.
Moreover, music tracks purchased on the iTunes store were easy to insert
as iMovie includes a database of the tracks stored on the account.
I eventually created a final cut which I am happy with due to these freely
available softwares.

15. Ancillary tasks
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the production of both my film review and poster, I used the program ‘Adobe Photoshop’. This software enabled me to insert and
manipulate images, which was especially beneficial for my poster. The ability to change shapes, positions, and colours allowed for me to create my
ancillary tasks with a lot of freedom. I had previous experience with Photoshop in my GCSE digital art course which made the production of each of
these products fairly easy. However, I do believe I could have been more ambitious with the poster as it seem fairly bland, despite being heavily
edited.
I did not require the use of any other media technologies in the making of these two products other than the computer which had the font used and
images stored on it already.
In order to improve on my use of these ancillary tasks through the use of new media technologies, I could have explored Photoshop further in order
to create a more complex and refined poster.