The third evaluation for my media advanced portfolio.

1. How effective is the
combination of your main
product and ancillary
texts?
My main product is a short film presenting a
character coming to terms with his recent hearing
impairment and dealing with the anger and
frustration that comes from that. I was keen to
reflect this focus on characterisation and aspects
of being hard of hearing in the ancillary tasks to
my advanced portfolio in a similar way to my main
task.

2. We were given the task of creating a poster that could appear in a magazine.
For this task I created a poster that would have been featured in any
traditional print magazine or newspaper and served to promote my film.
This was required an image that could convey necessary information
effectively as possible which informed many of my design choices. Wanting
to represent the loss of a sense in the same way I could in the short film
through the use of sound, I used Photoshop to add a filter, creating a gold
hue over the image presenting a distorted representation of the world,
implying something wasn’t right or missing. This made my poster and short
film an effective combination as they both used their mediums to represent
what it’s like losing a sense.

3. Having studied many other short film posters, I was keen to use
a single image that would encapsulate the story and premise. To
do this, I recreated my opening shot with my lead actor and took
the photo from a different angle, presenting my character alone
in his house looking at the letter that informing him he has
become deaf. The anger and resentment is what fuels the
character to isolate himself in the narrative of my short film and
by representing that in the image on my poster I was able to
create a stronger link between the poster and my short film.

4. Knowing that my short film featured a deaf
character, a disability not prominently seen in
mainstream media, it was important to highlight
that in the ancillary tasks. For my poster, this
involved suggesting it had been submitted to a
festival by the British Deaf Association, as well as
cite a review from online magazine See Hear, a BBC
product aimed to help the deaf community.

5. For my magazine article, I chose to present the feature as an exploration of
deaf or blind characters in films, as this was an important part of my short
film. The concept was that the magazine was prompted to explore disability
representation in film, acknowledging this isn’t an aspect widely explored in
film. This was prompted by the knowledge that film magazines don’t tend to
focus on short films primarily and would instead be more likely to use a
notable short film as a starting point for a wider discussion about the
industry. Many film magazines know that short films are able to be
experimental in a way that many features aren’t and I think it would be more
effective and realistic to explore that in a film magazine article as opposed
to a review. Exploring the theme presented in my short film in more detail in
the magazine is one of the reasons it works as an ancillary product in
combination with my main product.

6. Furthermore, knowing that the target audiences for short film as a medium are
audiences who would actively seek out short films, I was keen to reflect that in
the layout. To reflect the audience who would watch my short film I looked at
different layouts for film magazine articles and tried to replicate them in regards
to the placement of images and text. Using a large part of the top of the second
page with one image could be seen as risky as it obviously limits the space for
text or other features, but as film is obviously a visual medium it makes sense to
include images as prominent as the text in the feature. The image I chose for this
location was similar to the one used in the poster and would therefore create
synergy across the products, making the audiences familiar with the imagery of
the short.

7. How effective is the
combination of your main
product and ancillary
texts?
In conclusion, by reflecting aspects in the design
and content of my ancillary tasks I have been able
to create an effective combination, making sure
the prominent imagery and story behind the short
film has been included in both of the tasks.