2. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products While my media product followed many of the forms and conventions of the genre it was also an experiment in post modernism. I feel it is still recognisable as a drama however I have changed enough that the piece is unique, or at least as unique as one can hope for.
3. Challenging conventions I challenged the standard convention of a drama by making the film more surrealist. I felt that while drama was and is an excellent genre without change it would be something of a betrayal to myself if I did not add a little of my own flavour to my production. Many of the surrealist moments were inspired by some of my favourite writers such as Jhonen Vasquez or Sandy Mitchel
4. develop The breaks into flashbacks is a fully accepted, if not standard practice of the genre, however my lack of transition into them, save for implication from dialogue, is not. I also developed my understanding of symbolism through use of costume which I shall explain later in the presentation.
5. Examples I studied the surrealist film Fight Club as it also touched well on the subject of challenges within the mind. The protagonist, much like in my film, faced obstacles that he himself created without his knowledge. The short film Alive in Joburg was also helpful as it added a surrealist drama into the context of a short film. The emotions of the characters and editing techniques were invaluable to my film
6. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts The combination of main and ancillary tasks was extremely effective I felt. The three projects linked together and gave me the opportunity for a little experiment of my own. I felt that since my film was an experiment of post modernism and my poster naturally would follow suite I was given a good opportunity to create something that would help me in two key aspects
7. The first step I chose to see how effective doing the three tasks at different times was. I filmed the project in its entirety as the first step. By that point I had only created a rough draft of the poster and review. The review I consciously made sure to do as similarly to existing publications as was possible. I used a review from Empire magazine as a basis for my own project
8. The cause My reason for making the review as clear and straightforward as I could was for two purposes. The first was to contrast the post modernity of the film and poster and help me look at my work more objectively when editing the film and creating the poster. The second was to better ground and solidify my piece of work. While storyboarding and scripting was of course invaluable in the planning process and filming it did not really make the idea as clear as the review was in providing a supposedly retrospective view of the story.
9. What have you learned from audience feedback Feedback from an objective audience was extremely helpful. Because my film was post modern there were certain aspects of the film that were confusing to the audience and thanks to their feedback I was able to fix. for instance in the final scene I was able to fix a problem many of them had with understanding the circumstance of the milk being expired. To mend this I added the date on the screen. This aided me in editing as it made me remember that to those who do not know the story the movie must explain all possible plot holes and answer all questions. Unfortunately due to my own lack of forethought I foolishly did a mass showing of my film and was left with very few people who were able to give an uneducated and therefore more impartial view of the film.
10. How was audience feedback helpful? Even though I was only able to have one effective screening it was still extremely helpful. Objective eyes are always valuable when creating. Because of the post modernism of the piece I became very drawn into the story when creating it and could at times forget that one of the keys to making a good film is to make sure that there is nothing which confuses the audience or leaves them wondering why something was. For instance in the final scene wherein the protagonist drinks spoiled milk I made sure to add a date to the clip to show that the milk was off.
11. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages
12. As was shown on the box above most of the time spent with technology was on practical application. Followed by researching into genre, audience ect. Closely followed by that was time that retrospectively was wasted. While it may have made this project more inefficient it has helped show me areas I can cut down in to increase efficiency for future endeavours. For instance links on Google following the third page of results are often almost entirely irrelevant.
13. pdx170 The pdx170 will always have a special place in my heart as it was the camera I used for my first project. This beauty proved once again invaluable for two reasons during this projects creation. Firstly I was much more familiar with this piece of equipment than any other. The ease with which I was able to load footage from the camera to the computer was incredible Secondly I was able to get better sound quality on the pdxd170 due to being able to use a boom mike.
14. tripod Such a simple tool proved on multiple occasions to be invaluable. Due to my working on this as a solo project and a somewhat lacklustre group of friends and family I was on multiple occasions forced to both act and film scenes.
15. The internet What is probably the most common tool in the modern age is also the most useful. With the help of the internet I was able to research target audiences for films, watch and evaluate many short films, research subject topics such as schizophrenia which help me develop the character in my film
16. computers While it may seem a tad obvious I still felt it worth mentioning how valuable computers as a whole were to this project. I used both a Mac and PC in the films creation and both brought something to the table Macs made editing of the film much easier PCs were better for research and I was able to create my poster through use of Word Art
17. HD camera Instead of the pdx170 I used a new HD handheld camera. This was advantageous in some ways but less so in others Firstly the picture is clearer than that of the pdx170. it is easier to load onto a computer and finally it is much easier to use both in terms of positioning (due to size) and simplicity. Secondly it was somewhat worse than the pdx170 in that the sound quality was worse. I fixed this by in certain scenes dubbing over the characters voice
18. finalcutpro Final cut pro is the lifeblood of projects such as these and is just as important as any other tool in the film makers arsenal. The ease with which this allowed me to edit clips and ,just as vitally, insert the thought bubbles into the film made a world of difference. It gave me more confidence in the planning stages of the film and allowed me to do most all of the editing without any need for help.
19. In conclusion There were many influences in my film, many helpful examples and uncountable inspirations. Ultimately I feel that through all this I have made my piece very much my own. It has not been an easy process but as I have mentioned it was made infinitely simpler with the technologies, techniques and examples at my disposal. Thank you for watching my presentation. I hope you enjoyed it
