Quick - final edition

Promotional Poster - final edition

Evaluation- how did you use media technologies in the planning, production, and evaluation stages?

The main technology that i used during my coursework was blogger, as it allowed me to easily post all my planning and research into one location for me to quickly refer back to at any stage of production, this let me ensure that we stuck to our plans and our influences.

The main features of the blogger that i found most useful were that it allowed me to post pictures easily, and in high quality. It also allowed me to add links to websites and embed youtube videos.

In terms of the production phase of our short film and ancillary tasks, a wide range of technologies were explored. In shooting the footage for our short film, we decided to shoot on a go-pro camera, with a fish eye lens attachment, instead of a standard hand held camera like we did for our AS. This allowed us to explore a whole new range of camera angles, and it gave our footage a new perspective that made it different from all the other short films out there.

Evaluation - how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation - codes and conventions - magazine article

In designing our magazine article, the same approach that we used for our poster was applied here. Initially we examined a range of magazine spreads from various styles of publication. This helped in uncovering what features we needed to include in our work, and we learnt a lot about which colours and styles fit best with different types of article. For example, Kerrang! Magazine tends to use very bright, punchy colours like reds and yellows. Kerrang! Is an alternative music publication, so in this scenario, the bright colours are very ‘in your face’ and are synonymous with the themes of the magazine.

For our short film, we felt that the best style of publication to use would be a magazine specifically aimed at reviewing new media products. It would seem logical that an amateur production would try to get published in a well known magazine targeted specifically at critics and media lovers, as it is the most straightforward route to our target audience. Because of that, we wouldn't have to focus so much on gaining the audience's attention, but more so on  holding on to the interest of already prospective audience members. 

With this in mind, we set about writing an article that reflected the overall theme of the short film. We wanted to make it easy to read, so that no audience member felt excluded from the experience. We also wanted to include few elements of humor, as obviously, our target audience is primarily students and media lovers These are two groups of people that are able to appreciate humor within their chosen form of entertainment. If we were writing an article about, say, an opera... we would take an entirely different approach to the article, as it needs to be tailored towards our selected audience to give them the best possible experience. 

Magazine Article - final edition

Evaluation - audience feedback, what did we learn?

In order to gain some audience feedback, we recruited a few of our classmates, asked them to watch the rough cut of our short film, and then filmed their responses. We asked them to be as brutally honest as they liked. This way, we can get a better idea of the way the general public are likely to interpret the product, and also the kind of reactions we can be expecting to receive.  In creating this short montage of some of the comments our classmates provided, we learnt a lot about which elements of our product worked well, and which elements were not as effective.   For example, all three of the participants in this video said that they liked the first person perspective camera angles that were used. They complimented the technique used to produce such shots, and generally admired the overall effect created by them. In terms of the narrative of our short film, the idea is that we are seeing how two people's separate lives can link up in certain ways, and how the actions of one person may affect another person. We felt that the first person perspective was the best way to portray the experiences of each of the characters, so it was very pleasing that this came across well to our audience focus group. Initially we had some concerns that our audience may get confused between the two character narratives occurring simultaneously, but we were assured that the contrasts between the two characters were evident, and that each individual story was easily followed.   There were mixed reviews about the music we chose to include in the short film. At the time of creating this audience research, we were only showing them a rough cut of our product. The rough cut only included one piece of music (Beautiful World -Mark Knight). After hearing that the audience found the song to be a little repetitive after a while of listening, it was decided that we needed to mix things up a little bit, and so chose to include a second piece of music. In hindsight, the two contrasting pieces of music represent the two states of conciousness experienced by the male character (his premonition, and then reality). The change in music signals the change between these two states, and actually act as a huge help in defining where the character is in the narrative, and so makes the narrative even easier to follow. Our focus group did us a big favour by suggesting that idea. 
One of our participants suggested that some of our shots were too long, and that the fast paced music made him feel like the shots should change more rapidly to keep up with that. This was something i also felt when watching the rough cut, and so during the final production we went back and broke our longer shots into a series of rapid jump cuts. These gave the action an increased sense of urgency. Have you ever noticed that often, in horror movies, the antagonist seems to be able to move from one place to another at superhuman speeds? It's a similar concept to that. It tends to make us feel like there's more to this than meets the eye, and if done well, makes us feel just slightly uneasy. I feel that this is applicable and effective in our coursework in order to further emphasise the idea that this some kind of premonition, as opposed to regular reality the way we normally see it.  
Overall, all of our participants reported that they were able to understand the narrative that was being presented, and felt that the editing techniques made the story easy to follow. 
from our feedback, its evident that there are still a few creases that need to be ironed out. I feel that the issues we most need to focus on are: 

• length of the shots (this was corrected by cutting pieces of footage that we felt were too long into a series of much shorter, much punchier jump cuts.) 
• choice of music (as mentioned before, we later included a second, very different piece of music in order to counteract the repetitiveness that is common with House music. This also provided good contrasting between the premonition scenes and the scenes that were occurring in reality.)
• Length of the premonition scenes - taking too long to get to the major parts of the film (by reducing the length of the shots in the opening minutes of the short film, the premonition scene is automatically shortened as a result of this. However, we took this comment into account and removed some pieces of footage that we deemed unnecessary, or unrelated to the plot line, in order to arrive at the more interesting pieces of action more rapidly, therefore giving the audience something worth watching, so as to not lose their attention)  

Evaluation - codes and conventions - promotional poster

In designing our poster, i first spent some time online looking at posters for some recent feature film releases. From this, i was able to gauge what the industry standard was, and then decide which elements of this i would incorporate into my work. By examining a range of different poster styles i could also learn which techniques worked more effectively, and which i preferred. Aside from looking at actual posters, time was spent considering the symbolism of the title of our production. We wanted the title to relate to the plot of the story, without giving the entire narrative away, hence why we chose the title “Quick”. We kept with this idea in designing our poster. We used the symbolism of a clock face to represent the concepts of time being considered within the narrative, but removed the hands from the face of the clock, suggesting that there is no ‘fixed’ time. 

The main image is a medium close up portrait of the female character. It was decided that the female actress would be more appropriate for the main image of the poster, due to her interesting hair colour and expressive face. During the photo shoot, we asked her to don a concerned/frightened expression, as we felt that, upon looking at the poster and seeing fear on the actress’s face, it would give the audience a sense of curiosity as to what may have caused that, and so would draw them into watching the short film. We felt that using a human subject portrait as our main poster would give the audience the knowledge that there were human characters in the film that they would be able to recognise and connect with. 

Also on the poster are some reviews, ratings and quotations from well-known tabloid magazines and newspapers. By including these, it helps the audience to believe that this is a genuine product that they can trust. We can assume that anything endorsed by such a big brand name such as The Sun newspaper must be of the highest quality, otherwise the newspaper would not risk their reputation by being affiliated with the product. This idea is very similar to the concept behind the TV show Dragon’s Den. By associating ourselves with such a respected name, we reassure the audience that our short film is also a product to be respected. The bottom of our poster adheres pretty strictly to the industry standard. The BBFC classification certificate has been displayed on the bottom left hand corner. It was decided that due to the mild, implied references of injury and death that run through the film, that 15 was the most appropriate age classification. The higher classifications are usually reserved for explicit cuts to violence, gore, or other sensitive themes. Although this short film shows nothing explicitly, it is suggested, so to use a classification any lower than 15 would mean exposing younger children to sensitive ideas and concepts that are not age appropriate. Also at the bottom of the poster is the ‘billing block’, which is simply a list of names of all the people that can be credited with having worked on the film. The main names included are those of the producer, director and leading actors.

To discover what influences we wanted for our poster, we looked at some pre-existing designs from films that fit the same/a similar genre to that of our short film. The posters that most influenced our work are shown here: 

It is visibly obvious that my coursework was influenced by these pre-existing works. both Black Swan and Salt have used a medium close up of the leading female actress. By using a female, the posters become more appealing to the audience, due, in part, to the soft features of the woman's face, contrasting with the harsh backgrounds. The Clock Tower gave us the idea of using a clock face to symbolise time, however in The Clock Tower they have created clock hands from the female's legs, in this poster we decided not to include anything that even remotely resembled clock hands. We felt that this would further promote the idea of there being no fixed time within the narrative, and it explores the concept of not knowing how much time we have left. 

Evaluation - codes and conventions - influences

One of the main influences in my coursework was the Final Destination franchise, particularly the first film. 

Final Destination

The narrative for my coursework was heavily influenced by the concepts presented in this film. For example, throughout the film the main character (Alex) has a series of 'visions' or 'premonitions' in which he foresees the death of himself and his friends. In the opening scene, Alex and his friends are boarding a flight to France. He has his first premonition, seeing the plane breaking apart in mid-air, killing everyone on board. Naturally, this freaks him out a little bit, and he demands to get off the plane, with 4 of his classmates following him. From the terminal, they then watch the flight leave without them, and proceed to break apart and burst into flames, just as he pictured. 

In my coursework, the presentation of the premonition is similar. The audience assume they're watching the action unfold in real time, but it is later revealed that they've been watching a dream sequence, suspended in a time period just shortly before the time the action is supposed to be taking place. However, in the Final Destination films, the entire concept revolves around the idea that you "can't cheat death". This suggests that, by having the premonitions and avoiding the fatal situation, Alex is merely postponing his dire ending, and that he has now put himself at the top of death's priority list. This part of the concept, I was not so keen to include in my coursework. For one, it would be impossible to get such a complex storyline into such a short product. It would also be illogical to end our coursework with unanswered questions or cliffhangers. (However, if we were planning for a sequel then this is exactly how we would end our coursework). In my product we decided to work around the idea that the premonition was designed to help the character prevent the untimely death of his friend, as opposed to teasing and taunting the possibility of death, like in the Final Destination movies. 

We also felt that by creating a different ending, people would be able to see the influences of the FD films within our work, without feeling like they are watching a carbon copy. 

Other differences between my coursework and the FD franchise include the way the idea of death is handled. While the FD films like to be extremely graphic and often very creative with their methods of killing off their characters, we decided to take a more subtle approach, merely suggesting to the audience that the female character may have been hit by a car, and letting them fill in the blanks using their imagination. It was felt that this would help to create a more personal feel to the film, meaning the impact of the message would be increased, as the audience would feel a stronger connection to the film and the action occuring. 

Evaluation - codes and conventions of short films

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as “an original motion picture with a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.” Basically anything not considered long enough to be a feature film can be classed as a short film. However, it is most common to see short films with a running time of around 10 minutes. In the case of my product, it was felt that the story we were attempting to portray would be most effective with an overall running time of 5 minutes.

Typically, feature length action films tend to be around 2 hours long, which is actually surprisingly short in the film industry, when you consider that Titanic is 3 hours long, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is a whopping 3.5 hours long. So, in keeping with the idea that action films short be 'short and sweet', 5 minutes felt like the most appropriate length for our short film.

To make it any longer would have meant using longer pieces of footage, and dragging out the time until the major plot twist in the middle. I feel that this would have been risky as if we left the audience waiting for too long for the major action to happen, they would become bored and lose interest in the product.

The idea of making our product slightly shorter was also considered, but in terms of scene setting, character development, and storytelling, there simply would not have been enough time to include all the relevant footage and still have a plot line that was easy for the audience to follow. It also meant that we wouldn't have enough time to be able to build up the level of suspense that our short film lends itself to, and so the plot development towards the end of the product would be far less effective.

In order to get the product to around 5 minutes long, there were around 30 different clips, all of various lengths, used. Some of the longer clips were broken up by a series of jump cuts in order to keep the footage fast flowing (as is the norm in an action film). The idea is to use these clips to give the audience a sense of time passing, causing them to wonder where the action is taking them, which, coupled with the footage showing a progressive journey towards a destination, helps to pull the audience in, and take them on the journey. The destination, in this case, is the major plot twist revealed around 3 minutes into the product. The transitions used between the clips are mostly fading one clip into another. Again, this produces the feeling of the action happening over a period of time, and also highlights to the audience that the two different scenes set in the beginning of the film, are happening alongside each other in time.

In order to create a plot line that we could easily produce as a 5 minute short film, we applied Todorov's narrative theory. the basis for this theory follows 5 steps:

• Equilibrium - the story begins with a seemingly normal state of affairs. Everybody is happy and comfortable with their lives. (This opening is almost always a cutesy suburban household) 
• Disruption/disequilibrium- the antagonist of the story (usually a villain, or a major event, such as the outbreak of a deadly virus) causes a change and disrupts the order and normality of the lives of the characters.
• Recognition- the protagonist of the story realises this change has occured. They recognise that it will be down to them to attempt to fix it. (so, it's up to them to defeat the villain, or develop a cure for the deadly virus) 
• Restoring order- the protagonist undergoes the necessary steps in order to restore normality and remove the disruption caused by the antagonist. (This is where we would see the intense final showdown between the hero and the villain, or a high octane car chase to get to the source of the virus before it begins to spread) 
• New Equilibrium- cue the happy ending. The protagonist will have come out victorious in whatever challenge he was attempting, and now everybody is able to sleep soundly knowing the threat from the antagonist is gone, and shouldn't return. Equilibrium is restored. However, this can be described as a new equilibrium because the characters have been on a life changing journey and have learnt some important life lessons along the way, things have returned to normal, but with a new found appreciation for normality. 

below is a flow diagram detailing how the narrative of my short film coincides with Todorov's narrative theory: 

Evaluation - codes and conventions of action/adventure films - technical elements

Sound: 
generally, action adventure films have very dramatic music, which compliments the on screen action. the soundtrack is normally non-diegetic, but some diegetic sounds may be included to emphasise certain elements, for example; the dubbed sound of screeching tyres. In my product two very different pieces of music were chosen and combined to create the soundtrack.


The first song, titled "Beautiful World", is an original track from artist Mark Knight. This piece of music would be encompassed within the genre of 'house' or 'techno'. It is comprised of a steady, fast paced drum beat, probably provided by a drum machine or similar equipment. layered on top of this is a series of electronic sounds. I feel that these produce a very good effect in terms of my coursework, it is not the style of music you can just faintly pay attention to. House music is designed to energise you, to make you want to get up and move. By opening the short film with this style of music, it tells the audience that they're going to need to sit up and pay attention to this. 2 or 3 times within the track, the electronic layers come together into a crescendo, increasing in pitch and volume. Much like a drum roll, this suggests that we could be leading up to something important, whether it be a bass drop or a key change in the song, or some form of onscreen action. Either way, it pulls the audience's attention even further into the product. I have seen similar styles of music used as the soundtracks or title themes to major hollywood productions, and they produce brilliant effects in terms of drawing you in and forcing you to get into the product. below is, in my opinion, one of the most effective uses of techno/electronic style music as a movie soundtrack, taken from the opening credits of the first Saw film.


The second song chosen to make up the soundtrack is from a Ska-punk/punk rock band called Zebrahead. This track was an excellent choice for the second half of the short film. The ridiculously fast runs that can be heard on lead guitar add to the sense of speed and urgency created by the on screen action. The treble and the bass have been amplified and emphasised to create a deep, unnerving effect. Faintly in the background we can hear a variety of additional effects being added to the guitar parts, including pick scrapes and distortion pedals. These give it quite a rough, edgy vibe, along with being just slightly uncomfortable to listen to. Not enough so that it becomes unlistenable, but enough that it grabs your attention and makes you really think about what you're hearing.


Even when this product was nothing more than a concept and a sketchy storyboard, i knew that Zebrahead would need to be part of the soundtrack. they have the musical direction that fits in with action/adventure style products perfectly. In fact, in 2006 they were shortlisted by Sega and asked to record the theme song for the newest Sonic the Hedgehog game. I think that this emphasises just how appropriate this band is as a soundtrack for an action packed product.