Stephen Dunn A2 Media Studies 2011

1. The Double Crossing Dame

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
My main media product ‘The Double Crossing Dame’ was a short film
in the style of film noir. Because of this I had to use concepts that were
conventional to the genre, such as low-key lighting, hard-boiled
speech and a detective storyline, in order to create authenticity.
Low-key lighting produces shadows behind the characters, which
evoke secrecy and deceit. I was inspired to do this after watching the
opening sequence of ‘The Killlers’ (1946). Director Robert Siodmak
ensures that the lights from the windows illuminate only part of the
killer’s faces. I produced a very similar shot in my film (above) as I
found the technique to be particularly effective in creating a sense of
mystery and dehumanising the character.

3. Hard-boiled speech is the ‘tough’ dialogue detective characters
use in hardboiled noir fiction, most commonly associated with
violence and sex. As this style of scriptwriting is conventional to
noir, it was essential that I incorporated it into my script.
Film noir’s main protagonist would usually consist of a private eye
or police detective and he would be lead astray by a beautiful
femme fatale. These stereotypes are reflected in my noir through
the characters ‘Max Wilde’ and ‘Loretta Kane’.
My film challenged the conventions of noir by not using a
professional soundtrack and relying solely on diegetic sound to
create atmosphere and tension.

4. The film poster and magazine
review were both very
conventional in their design. This
was to convey a sense of
professionalism across my media
products and I achieved it through
studying the qualities of real
media products at industry
standards. These included Empire
magazine film reviews and
posters advertising The Matrix
and Watchmen amongst others.
Credits, tag-lines and a release
date are all conventional for a film
poster. Whilst stills, vertical text
columns and star ratings are
conventional for magazine
reviews. I incorporated these
conventions into my own work.

5. How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
It can be necessary to create a brand identity for your product across
the different platforms in which you are distributing in order for it to
be successful. My media took the form of a short film with two
ancillary texts - a poster and a two-page magazine review spread.
To generate an identity for ‘The Double Crossing Dame’, I used the
same visuals and themes throughout all three texts. For instance, I
placed a quote from the magazine review as an advertisement on my
poster and the same title font is evident throughout all three pieces.
Also as the film is in monochrome, the poster reflects this vintage
look by using no colour either.
The combination of my texts work together to promote my film and
form a package of media. This has meant that I can include all the
work together when viewing it as part of a portfolio, which is very
useful in demonstrating my ability to produce a project of this size
and caliber.

6. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
As I uploaded my media to Google’s ‘Blogger’, it meant that I could
share it with my peers via social networking sites such as Facebook.
They gave me their opinion on certain aspects of my work and,
although in most cases they were non-expert, it did help highlight
some of the flaws that I would have missed. For instance:
1. The sound levels on my film needed to be adjusted as some scenes
were too quiet and others overly loud.
2. The font size of the release date on my poster dwarfed everything
else and needed to be shrunk.
3. The font styles appeared amateur and required more professional
formatting.
4. The blog needed more pictures to illustrate the points being made
and to improve the general aesthetics.
After making the changes proposed I feel that the standard of my
coursework has greatly improved. This is evidence that audience
feedback is vital for producing high quality work and I will continue to
use audience feedback when developing future projects.

7. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the production of my coursework, I have successfully used new
media technologies to create an online blog for the first time using
Google’s ‘Blogger’. Inside this blog I used html to apply a still from a
popular film noir as the background to show the theme of my work.
Html was used to embed a variety of different media into my blog
including pictures, videos and even powerpoint presentations.

8. I embedded online resources as reference for
my research. These included video clips from
YouTube. I also uploaded my own film to
professional video site Vimeo. since uploaded
all my films and made a profile for myself to
promote my own work.
My poster and review pages were uploaded to
Yahoo’s Flickr as it allows users to upload
photos in high resolution and embed them
using html. This meant that I could display
the images on my blog in a larger size and in
higher definition.
I decided to use Microsoft Powerpoint as the
format for this evaluation. It has allowed me
to clearly address the questions proposed in
the marking criteria in a way that makes
suitable use of my digital technology and ICT
skills.