The evaluation for my A2 Advanced Portfolio short film, Cried Wolf.

1. CRIED WOLF:
EVALUATION
Michael Kiggundu

2. 1. In what ways does your media use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of media products?
The group and I made the decision to stick to the codes and conventions of
other films in our genre, being a Thriller Drama, as we thought that this would
allow the audience to familiarise themselves with the short film as they would
know what to expect.
In saying this, after looking at the various films that came before us in this same
category we decided to be as creative as possible whilst still remaining in the
guidelines of this genre; in doing this, we created a piece that was quite
exciting visually as well as conceptually, whilst not doing anything in the short
film that was too unexpected or unpredicted.

3. 2. How effective is the combination of your main
product and your ancillary task?
I believe that the combination of the short film and the ancillary texts was
extremely effective in letting my audience know about the concept of the film,
as well as the context of the film and ultimately attracting them to actually
watching the film.
Looking at previous films that have come out, both full-feature films as well as
short films, this package (the film, a film poster + a double page spread) is quite
common when drawing in viewers from your target audience and so I was well
aware that the ancillary products would be quite crucial in the promotion
element of things, in addition to actually creating a high-quality main product.

4. 2. cont..
In saying this, I attempted to create some sort of
consistency between the two ancillary products so that my
audience wouldn't be confused when it came to the general
aesthetics, concept and aim of the short film. To add to
this, by using similar colour schemes, editing techniques as
well as images and fonts for both of the ancillary
products, my audience would be able to distinguish the
'Cried Wolf' content whenever and wherever they saw it
which allowed the products to stand out and attracted many
people towards the short film, building interest amongst the
general public for some time.

5. 3. What have you learned from your audience
feedback?
My audience feedback was mainly directed at the short film itself, with the
audience believing that the scene where the 2 main characters were drunk
should have been shorter. The general reason they said was because the use
of various camera angles, special effects as well as a long piece of upbeat
'club-type' music made this scene as well as the short film look like a "music
video" which, upon looking at the short film again, was quite true and it could
easily distract the viewer's attention from the plot of the short film. If I was to go
about creating another short film, I probably wouldn't use a scene such as it
may put my target audience off from watching the short film. Having said this, I
do believe that this would've been acceptable if the music was one that my
target audience would most likely relate to and possibly like; the choice of
music was solely based on what the scene was visually portraying, without
much thought being put into whether my target audience would appreciate it.

6. 4. How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
I used a variety of media technologies in order to
both inspire me when researching various ideas and
methods for my short film, planning how I would go
about executing the concept I created and the actual
production and post-production stages of the short
film.
When going through the research and planning
stages of this process, I primarily used the internet
as a way to discover how other film-makers went
about creating their short films, and some of the
methods that they used to make sure that their
concept was properly executed.
Being that moving image was a new territory for me,
I knew prior to starting the process that the research
and planning stages would be extremely vital for me
in regards to in how the final product would turn out
as, being the editor in the group, I had the important
job of creating the final look of the product which
would affect how our audience received it greatly.
Reading a variety of articles, looking at a variety of
other short films and editing tutorial videos, the
internet played a massive part in my research and
planning stage, and allowed me to learn many of the
editing techniques that are used in the film industry
to create an industry-standard short film.

7. 4. How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
After going through this stage, as well as the production stage, we encountered the post-production
stages where I would take the lead. In this part of the process, Final Cut Pro was the software that I
used the most being that everything that I needed for editing was in that programme so there was no
need to use any external software. I was able to manipulate many of the colour correction tools within
the programme in order to create some sort of emotion and look to many of the shots according to
what was happening in the scene and what we were trying to show in that shot. In addition to this, the
SteadyCam filter provided in Final Cut Pro allowed me to clean up many of the shots that were
handed to me from the production stage. Being that we didn't have a tripod whilst filming, we weren't
able to get steady and stable shots originally whilst filming as all of it was handheld, so this filter
allowed me to manipulate the shots in order to get a steady shot and make the end result look clean
and professional.