Final Evaluation Q2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The two ancillary texts that we chose to do were the film poster as well as the film review page. Those two options seemed more approachable to us due to us not having access to sound recording equipment for the 3^rd ancillary text- radio trailer. For Monster, we decided to create a poster campaign as opposed to just one poster. A poster campaign includes a few posters that hold the same themes and ideas along with the same ‘house style’ to target different audiences or show different sides of the film. Our main poster featured Lilly with her friends on a mary-go-round with an outline of a tree bordering the entire poster. The fact that Lilly is seen sitting separately from the two girls shows the difference between the characters in the film- i.e. Lilly is the main character. That is the overall image that differed from the other posters because the house style of all three posters included- the slightly opened door in the background, the title “Monster” at the top written in children’s handwriting on a piece of lined paper, _­credit block, as well as the quote ‘Not all monsters live under your bed” in the follow up 2 posters. Each and every detail of the poster had a direct correlation to the film. The door in the background of the posters represents the father and the abuse. Where as the tree surrounding border holds the representation of the park and how her days are spent. All 3 posters included the leaves that were all made to resemble the meaning of the park. The escapism symbolism of the park is seen in all 3 posters. I believe the posters have a great correlation to the actual film without giving away too much information about the film. They all feature the main character which lets us know the film is about a young girl. It has hidden details such as the kid’s handwriting for the font in the title written on lined paper, quote, and actor’s names. After our posters have been completed I saw the posters for Where the Wild Things Are- these reassured me that we did the right thing with the kids handwriting as font because this also looks like a film based about a little boys life which works well with the text.( http://popprop.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/where-the-wild-things-are-poster.jpg) However for our poster these texts can easily be analyzed as being there because the main character is a child; however it also has a deeper meaning due to the fact that the entire plotline is of her writing an actual story. These details that would not be completely understood unless the film has been viewed can also be seen in the posters for 500 Days of Summer. (http://jbellan.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/500_days.jpg) The following poster has sketch drawings of buildings at the bottom. One would not understand the meaning of that unless they have seen the film. The main character was a failed/aspiring architect therefore this ties into the theme of the movie and is displayed on the poster as a minor yet significant detail. The poster with Lilly smiling and the shadow of her in the background crouching has a great contrast of happiness versus sadness and neglect. This is a direct correlation from the movie where she has two distinguishable sides to her life- the joyful side with her friends at the park and the neglected side of her father abusing her. The poster is part of the post-production area of filmmaking. It is a marketing strategy used to attract the target audience. Therefore it is placed in areas where the target audience has most access to. This could be at bus stops, shopping centres, movie theatres and more.

The film review was the second option for our ancillary text. This included research into film magazines such as Filmstar, Empire, and Total Film. As the task was to create a review that had the look of a real review page that could be featured in a currently running magazine, we chose to use Total Film as the template for our review page. Total Film includes every type of genre of movie ranging from child abuse to romantic comedies. That is why our film would target a good audience by being featured in this magazine. The British magazine has reviews, interviews, commentaries and much more-everything having to do with the film industry. The review we have created includes Monster being the featured review being located at the top of the page with most text and the largest picture. This is often done in magazine reviews to highlight an ‘editor’s pick’ or a newly released film. The picture that we used for the monster review is of the three girls lying in the park laughing and smiling. This represents the innocence of the girls and shows a good representation of the movie to the audience reading the review. Even though reviews come out after the actual release date, it is still important not to give too much information away in interviews, commentaries etc. so that the audiences, which have not seen the film, will still endure the shocking affect of the story. Therefore this picture is more affective as opposed to having a screenshot of Lilly crying alone. The text is also very pun filled and metaphorical. (As most reviews are) Reviewers tend to use a specific type of English to describe the films in a more interesting and slightly obviously rude way. A great example of a film review pun can be seen at the UP film review in Total Film. (http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/up-1) “Pixar reaches for the skies once more” is more than obvious when it comes to the reference of the plot line of the film. Taking a quote from our review- “Klaudija Alasauskaite does it again, in an epic tale of deception where we find out not all monsters live under your bed…” This sentence from the review takes the direct tag line of the film to interest and intrigue the readers. Using this tagline ties together the two ancillary texts together as the posters also includes the tag line. The other reviews on the page simply allow for the page to look more realistic and appealing. However everything is positioned in a specific way to where your eyes first jump to the review of Monster.

Final Evaluation Q3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has proved to be vital when it came to creating our entire coursework-from start to finish. I realized that when it comes to creating your own work, it tends to be hard at first to accept constructive criticism. However when you take a step back and look at your work from different points of view, it becomes easier to see the flaws and you begin to see the changes that could make your work that much better. The feedback we received goes all the way back to the very first pitch we ever created. This was a completely different story idea that we had but decided to go with a new direction due to too many complications and problems with the first treatment. Looking back now, it is so apparent that the first treatment was never going to be successful due to the massive amount of questions we received during the pitch- there were just too many holes! If it is too difficult to describe a story in one sentence it will probably be just as hard to describe the story in two paragraphs.
After the initial feedback we tried to recreate the story to be something possible to create, however due to all the negative feedback we decided to create an entirely new plot line. The story of Monster came after watching numerous short films on the BBC Film Network. However when the story came, it seemed so flowing and simple. This was reassured due to the excessive positive comments received after the pitch. The only negatives we received were how we would get a grown woman to play the part of the teacher, and how we would show the punch/hit of the dad towards the little girl. I believe these two problems were easily fixed with using a shadow scene with the hitting and using an older looking 6th form student for the part of the teacher. The positive feedback such as ‘keeping the girl sweet will allow for audience to relate to her better’ allowed us to exaggerate the positive parts of the film even more. A very positive feedback that we receive was that we were going to make this with ‘passion in our hearts’. Making a film with such a strong and emotional message will not be successful unless everyone involved is truly passionate and caring about the project.
The next big feedback we received was for our script. The main feedback that really affected us was that it did not have enough narration. And as this was a major part of our film we definitely listened to our classmates opinions and extended the narration as well as added a lot more stage directions. The feedback once again proved to be correct as when we finally got to the editing stage of the post-production, we need to add even more narration as the screen looked a bit empty with just the girls playing in the park without a voice over. (Once again proving how important feedback is!)
The storyboard was very important to have on hand while shooting, that is why the feedback we received for it while creating it helped us make it the best it could be. The main issue with our first storyboard was the missing of cut away shots. There was too much repetitiveness going on and unnecessary shots of the same things. When redrawing the storyboard, you can instantly see how much more interesting the story become when you add cutaway shots of reactions, other places, etc. Having the insight of a fresh mind and fresh ideas is vital when creating a work of art; otherwise the project will be so narrow minded and shallow.
We received much of our feedback throughout our ancillary texts stages. The poster was redone about a dozen times to adhere to the audience’s feedbacks. When starting out with the idea for the poster we were very passionate about having the fist in the layout. This seemed to be very appropriate due to the fact that the film was about child abuse. However we received feedback that it seemed too much like a boxing film and did not hold the true representations of the story. As we took this into consideration, it was decided to stray away from the first idea and begin a new poster involving the tree and the girls. This received more positive feedback such as “It holds a good representation of the film without giving too much away”. The poster campaigns all went through vigorous feedback sessions that would be altered after each one. Even minor details such as adding more leaves to the posters were considered. I believe this feedback helped us make the best of our poster. The main feedback we received for the film review page was that it looked very professional and fit the style of the magazine very well. The only alteration that they suggested was to make the “Total Film” icon in the top right hand corned bigger to take up the empty space. However we considered and we did not change this because that is just how it looked in the actual magazine.
I believe receiving lots of feedback during the preproduction stages was extremely important, because at this stage it is still not too late to change your ideas or even go to a completely different direction. (As we did) However the feedback we received during editing helped us so much in terms of solving issues that may have arisen or just help us get out of a rut if we had trouble being creative. All of the editing feedback (that is located on my blog) was all highly considered and alterations were made where necessary. Overall I believe evaluation has shaped the look of our entire film, from start to finish. Without people’s feedback we would probably have a horrible film about an old man on his deathbed!

Final Evaluation Q4

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

There is not a doubt in my mind that without most of the technologies that we used during the making of our coursework, our film would not exist. However in reference to ‘new media’ the main form of technology we used to help us through out the different stages of the entire production is the internet. This mainly includes my blog, search sites for research, videos and more. The internet has endless amounts of information that was useful and relevant to our coursework. The main search site I used was Google. This allowed for me to narrow down all of the web pages on the internet to my relevance. Youtube was also very helpful when it came to finding information videos such as the ones I viewed about Cinematography. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDMRB5cCrzY) Everything that we have created so far on paper or on the computer has been either scanned in (paper versions) or copied onto the blog to keep on record. This allowed us as a class to view on a large projector screen and give feedback or evaluations without everyone looking at a single sheet of paper that includes our storyboard- they now have the opportunity to look at it on a large screen. After drawing the storyboard it went through stages to appear there-which all included technologies of new media. First it needed to be scanned onto a computer, the scanned JPEG image was then uploaded onto a PowerPoint document, then that document was uploaded on a document sharing website called SlideShare; finally after getting the embed code, pasting it onto my blog as an entry. This was done with many entries that included any type of pictures. The videos that were uploaded from my camera onto my computer were then uploaded on a video sharing site like Youtube or Tinypic and then later posted on my blog in video format. This allowed for people to see ‘samples’ of the final product in video format as opposed to simple pictures. This can be seen on the post about Monster Masks where I constructed masks that were going to be featured in the opening sequence of our film. The video displayed the masks just as they were going to be in the film. This allows others to see the thoughts and ideas in our heads easier that just by description through word.

Another way we used our blog as a product of new media was by viewing each others blogs and leaving each other comment feedbacks so they can easily be accessed and viewed by each person. To address the digital side of new media- Adobe Photoshop was the most used program when it came to creating any type of enhanced picture project. This includes our original moodboard for the color red, world our film collages, and both of our ancillary texts. I was familiar with Photoshop from using for quite a few parts of our coursework for the AS Production, however that does not compare to how much I learned this year from having to use it so much. We are very fortunate to have such programs at our disposal as it makes the image editing process so much easier and more creative. The posters took an extremely long time to complete due to the constant feedback we kept receiving, however having it saved as a Photoshop file, it was always easy to go back to the program and make any needed adjustments to the layers. This would be impossible to do on a hand drawn artwork without completely restarting the artwork. The editing program we used, Adobe Premiere, is also made by the same company. This can be seen as media convergence when two areas of the media come together to form a new sector. This results in two programs having similar functions, therefore being easy to use same images/videos/ideas for both of them.

The production side of the filmmaking process has been so highly improved over the past years to make it easier and more practical to make films. This can be addressed from the point of portability. Almost everything but the desktop computers was portable. This results in going on location-such as the park- without having to recreate the set where the equipment is. By digitally recording the video on a tape it is easy to digitize it onto the computer and digitally cut it without having reels of tape and having to physically cut it by hand like years ago. Computers can easily read the tape and view the videos that have just been recorded instantly; this makes it very universal. Having all the information saved on a computer makes it very accessible and easy to view without any special arrangements. My group could easily edit the film individually without everyone having to be there because we had such simple access to the computers.

As I mentioned earlier, for the evaluation/feedback stages we used the blogs to leave each other comments. For this final evaluation I am using Microsoft Word to write my evaluation. It is much easier than writing a few thousand words out by hand. Also, once I am finished it will take just a few seconds to post it on my blog. New media has made everything instant and easily reachable within a few clicks.

Final Magazine Review

Complete Final 3 Posters

Poster Campaign-Drafts

We made 2 other posters to go along with our original poster- this will create our poster campaign. Here are the following options we first created along with the feedback:

This was a simple spin on the original poster with the cracked door in the background. It shows a sad Lilly as a focus of the poster. However, the feedback that we recieved stated that it looked unfinished and had some bits missing. It did not completely correlate with the original poster with the tree in it. We recieved positive feedback about the glow around the girl- this makes her look more innocent and pure. It was also said that the glow around 'Monster' would look better in orange along with the other poster.
This is the 3rd poster idea. It has a picture of Lilly on the round-about smiling and happy. However to contrast the happiness of this poster; the shadow of Lilly (scene from the movie) is on the top corner, on her shoulder. To go along with the other 2 posters the top of the tree branches are located at the very bottom behind the credit block. The feedback we recieved is that the layout of this poster does not look good with the quote on the shadow of Lilly. 'Taylor Cook' also seems to be in the wrong place. The suggestion we got was to move the quote to the top of the credit block and move 'Taylor Cook' to the of the poster. To tie this poster together along with the other ones some orange color is needed.


This is the updated version from the feedback we recieved. Now the tagline is included like on the other psoters; the glow behind 'Monster' is now orange to stay the same house style with all the posters. I put blowing leaves at the bottom of the picture of Lilly so it brings in some color as well as texture to the over all poster.








Once again I brought in the leaves at the bottom of the page to tie all the posters together. They have a blowing in the wind effect to bring in the theme of the park.

New Poster-Draft

I decided to make an entirely new poster because the feedback we received for the last poster did not seem like it would be a useful poster to put forth as our final poster. Also, every time I tried changing anything on the old poster it would all end up looking more or less the same. I believe it was more useful to just go with a whole new idea. This is the new poster idea draft one. It shows the happy side of the girl because she is with her friends on the round about, however there is something mysterious and chilling about it due to the cracked door in the back of the black background. The tree in the foreground suggests the presence of nature in the film-which is the park. The leaves from the tree are being dragged towards the door- which also signifies the mystery of the door. Overall, the door suggests a hidden meaning of child abuse. –However it is not as obvious as in the previous poster where the fist took up the entire page. We received very positive feedback from this poster such as it looking as an actual poster-the tree with the leaves looked very nice and had a meaning for the film. The negatives we received would be that the actress’s names aren’t very visible and the picture of the girls needs to be more in the foreground because you lose touch of what is most important in the picture. The door isn’t as visible as it should be either because all of your attention goes straight to the leaves and the tree. Also the actress’s names aren’t very visible in the bottom of the page because they are dark and too similar to the background. Here is the updated version of the poster:
FINAL POSTER:

This poster idea came directly from the aggustments due to the feedback that we recieved about the first one.On this poster, I corrected all the little misperfections to make it all once together. I moved the copied and moved the image of the tree onto the other side so it looks more like a border as opposed to just a tree on one side. This allows for the girls to be more centered-hence the center of attention, because we want the viewers to be immediatly drawn to them. I also made the title more bold and prominent because once both trees were combined it was too messey and too difficult to read the title at the top. Another aggustment I made was the color of the cast's names at the bottom of the page. Now they are white and much more easier to see. I recieved very positive feedback stating that this final poster represents our film but does not give too much away at the same time. It's mysterious and interesting- which is one of the best feedback we recieved as that is the way we'd like people to see our film as well.