Stephen's Evaluation

 QUESTION 1: IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

The short film 

Before creating our film, we underwent a lot of research into other shorts films; finding out similarities and differences to the feature length films we are used to. From the research we found that all short films are unique in in some way, however there are common conventions that they all share; the use of the following are all attributes that are shared and respected in short films:

• Camerawork 
• Sound
• Editing
• Mise En Scene
• Use of genre conventions 
• Narrative organisation & short film format
• Themes and Issues 

Camerawork

From the research I have found that camerawork is vital to the art of telling a story in a short film. Angles particularly evoke a spectator response that otherwise couldn't be met; such as a low angle on the protagonist as he finds a device in the film (appropriately named) 'The Device.' The angle gives the character power as he finds it, and as such something we've tried to copy in our short film. At the opening we see our protagonist get out of her broken down car; the low angle gives her power as she walks off- showing that she can indeed walk instead of taking a car, and that it is not too much of a hindrance.



However, we also did the opposite. Instead of a strong character later on in the film we've shown her as a weaker character; someone who is deeply struggling and as such the camera work needs to reflect this- so a low angle would show us this. When there's a loosing fight scene a low angle would emphasise her failure. Her distress.

 
And then, at a critical point in the film we see a reversal in power; where our protagonist overcomes her 'second self' and literally beats it out of her.We used a birds eye view, as well as it being a point of view shot, to give the extra emphasis on the fact that Eve is beating this hallucination. We're also seeing a POV shot from the hallucination- at a very low angle- giving, again, extra emphasis on her overcoming what has hindered her for the entire film. When we're looking at Eve there's also a slight canted angle to really discomfort the viewer- seeing this once emotionally weak character assaulting her own self in such a powerful show of self confidence; one the audience likely wasn't expecting. This quick change in the angles was unused in any of the short films that I analysed; therefore we have challenged and developed upon how quickly a character should have their respective angles changed to show a power struggle. 

Through camera distance we've adapted a lot of existing conventions of short films; a variety of shot distances, mostly to show a characters reaction. Copying what was used in 'Alone', an extreme close up was used to discomfort the viewer, showing true emphasis on the character's eyes. Similarly (though not the same), we used a close up moving forward to a big close up to emphasise our protagonists' anger and, as said above, to discomfort the viewer by swapping around the character traits. 

We never once used an extreme close up in our short film as we thought that it'd take away too much of the emotions that or protagonist was going through; instead going for distances which emphasise them in a more subtle way. Through the screenshot alone you can tell that her facial expression isn't only that of her eyes but of her mouth and her body language; and an ECU would have taken that away. The depth of field on our protagonist also enforces these emotions; suddenly provoking an uncomfortable perspective on her- the darkness (made by using a black light reflector to act as a key light) on her left (our right) side of the face is the same darkness that we've seen inside the hallucination. 

We also used extreme long shots to give a sense of positioning, a location where the story takes place. Similar to where in 'Believe' we see an ELS of the protagonists' apartment building we show an ELS of one of the few houses our protagonist breaks into. These extreme long shots show where our story is located and the social background that she may have grown up with; a definitive contrast to the apartment building used in Believe. Similar again, an extreme long shot is shown in 'Mixtape' of the location of the story. A convention in all short films will be an Extreme Long Shot to show the location of the story and the character's against it; done to give a slight background on the character's lives before the film.

Mixtape

Believe

Second Self

Movement wise we used a Stedicam to show our character's movements, a movement similar to the one used in 'UFOh Yeah'. This movement choice was used as, opposed to the dolly movement in UFOh Yeah, a stedicam can be shaken around a bit to distort the audience's view and 'shake up' the film. Semantically, this would be used in a horror or thriller- so this is a variation of what a genre could feature. In UFOh Yeah a dolly was used to show the steady movement of the charactor going closer to investigate the UFO- he is facing danger. Our film is the opposite; she is running away from danger- and therefore should be more chaotic.

Sound

In our short film we used a variety of sounds to convey different meanings, most frequently trying to convey Eve's fears and emotions in the sound. All sounds were recorded from an external sound device- a shotgun microphone. Most sound recorded was synchronous, recorded at the same time we recorded the video. Foleys and other sounds that needed enhancing were all recorded asynchronously. 

Each film I analysed had a dramatic non diegetic sound track at some point in the film, enhancing the viewers perspective on the on-screen action. In short films it is rare, from what I found, that the sound was contrapuntal to that of the action on screen. Sound relies heavily on the genre that it belongs to. For example, UFOh Yeah, a comedy, features a light non diegetc soundtrack in the beginning then leading into a dramatic orchestra as the climax is reaching its pinnacle. We've copied this convention into our own short film; sticking to only parallel sounds which match the action on screen. 

We have adapted and developed some film conventions for sound by using very little dialogue in the opening of the film; instead relying on the action on-screen and the soundtrack to convey meaning. Like in Believe (where there was very little dialogue throughout the film), instead we didn't have a news reporter setting the scene for our 'end of the world'. The dialogue in 'Alone' seemed far too cliché and we wanted to create a variation , leading to the hallucination being able to talk. In Alone it was simply the survivor giving a voice-over, off screen, over his actions; leading to an emotionally dry narrative- which we desperately tried to avoid.

During our film we used a Foley effect to enhance the sound of the pot hitting the wall; the smashing was a pot itself smashing against the ground. The Foley effect was simply the wooden protective board hitting a brick wall, it was a faint sound but combined with the smashing pot it's much more life-like. Here is a video of us smashing the pot against the ground to create the on-screen diegetic sound that you here during the film: 

Lovefield was a short film that used a lot of sound to convey meaning; we wanted to replicate that with the use of our sound. We, in contrast, used Foleys very sparsely compared to in that short film. In retrospect we could have used more to enhance the footsteps in our short film (we recorded them asynchronously yet they still sounded rather bland.) We did develop upon the sound design used, however, by implementing a similar soundtrack to convey a thrilling atmosphere. The ambiance used in Lovefield was also exceptionally, so we simply had to replicate that in our own film- which, when filming in a rural area, was a real pain but undoubtedly worth it. 

Editing

From the films we researched we took the most conventions used from the edits that we saw. We, however, did break conventions by splitting the frame in half in order to show the same actor in two positions (as two different characters). This break in convention has led to a number of audience members to comment on how unique it feels, which makes our short film that much more gripping to watch.

One of the conventions that we copied over was from 'The Device', which was the jump-cuts as the protagonist is transported to a different location. We've replicated the jump cuts to mean something else, however, developing and challenging that convention. A jump cut is more semantic to a thriller; which is a sub-genre our short film could be seen as. However, in our short jump-cut sequence we did not use it to create a thrilling sequence; instead, it was to convey how happy our character was before we're introduced to her other self. Here are the two jump cuts:

From what I saw in my research all the short films featured cuts as the main transition; however, we made use of a lot of fades in order to create a 'dreamlike' state as well as a more smooth, calm, transition towards the end of the film. This is a break in short film convention from what I have researched, and it definitely worked for the best. Allowing the film to run smoothly while not making it boring with the amount of cuts that could have been used. 

We featured a dream sequence, like that of the opening in 'Alone'. In our short film, the same as Alone, the protagonist is remembering a time before the 'end of the world': made obvious by the  blur in addition to a high contrast; placed there in post-production. Another way our short film developed upon Alone was how the protagonist wakes up; in Alone he simply hears a police siren and wakes up breathing heavily. We, however, placed four different sets of non-diegetic, off-screen parallel sound). The special effects  used were also a challenge towards the way that short films are edited; particularly in Alone. 

• These two shots are milliseconds before the protagonist wakes up, notice the difference?

Finally on editing, the use of pace and the changing of pace depending on the situation was a use that most short films followed. For example, in 'UFOh Yeah', it's a very slow paced film- it's a comedy mostly, but it still wants to build suspense to its final confrontation where the audience doesn't know what's going to happen. Likewise, we featured slow paced editing when our protagonist was venturing into the unknown- and fast paced editing when there was actions on screen, such as our final confrontation between Eve and her hallucination- like in Believe where the protagonist faces the asteroid at the end of the film. 

Mise en Scene

Mise en scene is essential in story telling; for telling the audience about a character that may not be immediately obvious. These aspects are those that were thoroughly thought about during out film:

• Costumes were based around a characters being; there was one costume per character and they didn't change out of that. Eve due to her being on the way home with only a small bag, showing she doesn't have enough space to carry her items home. Her clothing consisted of simply a t-shirt to show the simplicity of the character; and how looking good isn't her top priority. The hallucination due to the fact that she can't change clothes- she is a manifestation of an antagonistic character. As such, she appears in a high-quality leather jacket and scarf, semantically used to show a character as believing they are better than others. The burgler wore simple dark clothes and is only seen once; this clothing was semantic to what you'd see in any thriller film. When looking at real media texts the costume doesn't play a huge part for short films; however there is one article of clothing that stands out and informs the audience about who that character is- something we've developed upon and repeated. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Make-up and hair: The hair and make-up only apply to Eve and her hallucination; Eve has dirt smeared on her face showing how long it's been since she could last clean herself- also showing how she doesn't take any detours and wishes to head home the quickest way possible, even if it's muddy. Eve's hair is meshed up to equally deliver this effect. The hallucination, however, has well made-hair and make-up; showing not only the difference between these characters but how the manifestation is delving into a characters fears of being un-worthy of her parents. Looking at real media texts we've kept it to convention and not developed upon many ideas.

• Lighting: Each shot had an artificial light used to highlight different parts of the shot. Low key lighting was frequently used to convey the darkness of the film; to replicate how Eve might feel as if it were her own mind showing these events. This, again, stuck to convention as it's fundamental to creating a good film; we didn't want a shot too bright or too dark. However, our final scene in our film had a blue filter on a filler light, to create an ominous feel; the blue colours challange convention slightly as it's not realistic or natural, however it creates a 'dream- like' state that this scene needs. 
  
  
• Facial expressions and body language: Both facial expressions and body language were used heavily in the film; with the hallucination featuring cynical, sarcastic and mocking facial expressions Eve featured more calm expressions- eventually, however, leading to more aggressive expressions. The use of facial expressions is vital in the conveying of a story and so is a convention of short films that we have kept the same. When looking at 'Alone', Eve featured the same type of body language as the protagonist of that film- both of whom are in a somewhat similar situation. Both are reserved and yet outgoing as they search around. 
  
  
  
  
• Props: The use of props in our short film wasn't as significant as in other short films; challenging that convention. Throughout we had shown Eve with a bright torch, constantly illuminating areas. This was a metaphor for her hope of finding another person; illuminating the dark to reveal another person. The other main prop we used was the plant pot that was thrown in anger at the hallucination. This part was significant due to the beginning of a rebellious nature towards her hallucination; and the beginnings of her overcoming her inner demons. 

Use of genre conventions:

Some short films can't be put into a particular genre of film, either as they're too realistic or feature a lot of drama. As with all the short films I analysed, our short film falls into a genre. The main genre of it is a thriller. This can be seen by the use of enigma codes throughout our piece of work, similar to the enigmas created by 'Alone'. The sub-genre is a science fiction, as this situation can only ever happen in a future where science has gone wrong. 

Looking at similarities between the genres of 'Alone' and our 'second self' we see that the main comparison was the use of an enigma code; the lack of anyone else. This 'apocalypse' scenario is iconic and semantic towards science fiction as well as thriller, giving an identity to our film straight away. Our ending also followed 'Alone' in a syntactic method; not giving a clue vision on how the film ends and leaving it up interpretative- a syntactic narrative structure to Science Fiction books and short films; namely 'Believe'.

Our film has applied Steve Neal's repetition and variation well; using mostly variation to create a unique short film. An example of variation is our lighting in our final scene; whereas all of the short films I analysed which followed the same genre used natural, realist, lighting- ours instead used a blue tint to give a 'dreamy' feel. This variation has meant that it is clear our final scene is not normal, added onto the fact that the rest of our shorts used repetition of natural lighting to make it seem like a real event. 

Narrative organisation and short film format:

Our film followed Todorov's theory to an extent.The slight difference being the equilibrium; we never see an 'ordinary' world, instead the audience is thrown right into an apocalypse scenario. The disruption of the film is where we know for certain that the world has ended; the dream sequence where Eve wake up in a sweat. We're then met with her hallucination, the major cause for disruption and the ongoing conflict of the film. The resolution is where Eve fights against the hallucination and she disappears for good, or so the audience is led to believe. The new equilibrium is then seen in a dream like sequence, again, aimed to challenge the thoughts the audience is thinking at this end of the film-whether this is a fantasy or it actually happened, and if that voice was actually Eve's father. 

Similarly, we follow the style of 'Alone's' morphology theory in a way, as they also had limited characters in the film. To advance the story of our film we've included someone else who survived the 'end of the world' and how her survived is interpreted by the audience's viewpoint. Either way, we have a Heroine, Eve, and a villain, the hallucination. The other survivor has no true identity; he neither hinders nor helps the protagonist- instead, merely a spectator to the events. Our film therefore features a binary opposition of good vs evil, the real girl vs the hallucination. 

As short films are short there's a lot of story to pack into a  small plot, meaning that if done incorrectly things don't make sense- though they can be more powerful. Like Alone, again, we've ended our film on a major 'cliffhanger', not a true ending. Where our protagonist has heard the voice of her father- or is it really her father? This is similar to the light being switched on in Alone. 

Themes and issues:

Our film mainly dealt with mental disorders; we strayed away from any other stereotype and attempted to show our character- a female- in a neutral style; to stray from the gender representation and focus on what was important for us. Nonetheless, we did attempt to show that she was a strong character (physically and mentally) both before we're introduced to her 'second self' and after. The themes we wanted to combat were of mental illnesses, namely schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. This is because it's not often done in films and so we wanted a fresh and unique film to be oriented around this; a girl who's hallucination bullies and causes harm to them. We strayed from other themes so this will remain the sole focus; giving our audience a new and fresh look on something which would hopefully change their opinions on this. 

The lack of other themes and issues was purposeful; deeming it a bit too full of it if we were to add in some more themes; as the theme we chose was very hard hitting. The 'apocalypse' idea could have been said to hold an issue yet the choice was for it to remain ambiguous; allowing the audience to choose how the world ended- and the issues that led to it. 

The theme of our film was our protagonist overcoming her inner self; a taunting and violent entity who had made her life a living hell. We wanted to show her journey with this; from where we didn't know about it, to where she has seemingly overcome it. We wanted our audience to understand the pain for her, and hope that she'll become powerful enough- in her mind- to overthrow it. The secondary theme we had was the apocalypse: an end of the world situation. This is a perfect sub plot for our main theme; allowing it to seem like this mental disorder could overburden the person watching in certain situations. 

Another theme for our film was the journey home; a voyage of self-preservation and of overcoming obstacles. Something that relates heavily to our target demographic; who've likely left home for university or are moving their way through college or out for employment- all of them are moving away from home and are likely wanting to return. It's a reaction that most people would have if the world ended- run straight home- and for the audience it's likely on the forefront of their minds anyway, the pressures of work building up. And so the theme hits the audience hard, subconsciously they're wondering if this could be them- and the answer is likely a 'yes.' In doing this, our short film provokes an emotional response from the audience, something that we aimed for from the start.

The ancillary products; poster:

Conventions found in film posters and our response to them:

• The layout of a film poster is typically portrait; ideal to show a character as well as a background of the story. This always gives enough room for the credit block, names of the actors, pictures and the title of the film. It's also more condensed to keep the poster eye catching and less 'word heavy' as could be the case. Likewise, our film poster was laid out portrait to give the best look of it. 

• Furthermore, we'd typically (though not always: see Ce Lume Minunata) see the lead characters in the film to draw in people who recognise the characters (star power.) Though, in the poster to the right's case it could be due to the foreign nature of the film or that it was an amateur film with a lesser known actor. In this case, the enigmatic prop of a shoe draws the audience in to wonder what has happened to it. Our film poster featured both characters played by our actor; this gives away part of the plot line to give the audience some idea of what the film is about. 

• The title of the film is always the largest piece of text on the poster. The titles will also contrast with the background to make it stand out more.  Our film title was white on a black background to really grab the attention of the audience; the font also is eye-catching and bold to further bring the audience in. The shattered font is also a metaphor for the goings on in Eve's brain; a shattered mind reflected by the shattered effect on the font. Our title sticks to the typical conventions of a film poster, by way of content and layout- as all the letters fit perfectly together. 
  

• The actors who appear in the film will typically be the second largest text size. However, this will only occur if they're well known actors- if not, then a directors name will likely appear or a production company. The actors name is usually used to sell the film, like with their character appearing on a poster. Unconventionally, we've used the names of the 3 actors who appear in the film; the lead's being in the middle but with the largest font size. 
  

• Taglines appear conventionally in high concept movies however from the films that I have researched 3 out of the 4 don't have them; the one that does has a single line "BEWARE". We didn't feature a tagline as we wanted to keep a slight enigma around the film to make people watch it; a convention that most short films follow. 

• A credit block will always appear on a film poster due to its legal requirement; located normally at the bottom of the poster out of sight so not to disturb the main imagery. The font is normally coloured white or black depending on the background so it's eligible to read but not too eye-catching to keep the focus on the poster itself. Our credit block followed convention by being in a white font and placed at the bottom of the poster. 

• A website or a link to a social media network is frequently used to allow the audience quick access to places where they can order or book their tickets to see the film in a cinema, or to watch the full length film if it's a short film. We've stuck to convention as it is a great way to advertise and get revenue; through a website. We've also put a 'Hashtag' on our poster as a marketing device, which isn't common convention in current media products but will likely appear more frequently in the future. 
  
  
  
  

• We've added reviews of our film to show that we've put forward our film to these award companies and have been rewarded. This is common convention in high concept movies but, from the films I researched, they do not feature awards on their poster. Awards also make the poster stand out; the iconic laurel will grab anyone's attention. 
  
• Our background imagery is not conventional; a plain black background isn't eye-catching normally; however, with our film, it signifies there's a darkness in this film. Furthermore, it keeps these two characters as the focus of the poster; signifying the battle that takes place between the two of them. 

The ancillary products; Review:

Our review was made to only follow the typical conventions that a review has. So, we followed the 'in house' style that a little white lies review will have while keeping the developed and challenged ideas to a minimum.

Different features of a LWL review

Our final review poster

Our review kept all the features that a typical LWL review would have; keeping all the font the same, spacing and alignment strictly the same as an ordinary review. You can see a large empty space in our review though this is due to further comments on the film unnecessary and would likely cause the review to go over the required word count. 

The content of our review stuck mostly to convention; however, we did challenge slightly by including alliteration to make the review livelier; "pioneering piece produces a twisty turny tale"- after which we avoided all other types of alliteration. 

A rhetorical question is used which is often a convention that is used in Little White Lies magazine "who’d allow a car to run out of petrol anyway?" 

The use of restricted language makes the film more appealing for people reading the review; so they'll want to watch the film themselves: "yet strangely clenched together when times are at their worst, or so it appears." 

The use of metaphorical language helps convey the themes of the film; "It's almost biblical, in a way, how the protagonist is named Eve at the end of the world." This, in turn, is also a 'Rule of three' which is a frequent convention in LWL reviews. 

A complex writing structure also makes the review not only more professional but also the review becomes more lifelike. Thus, it is a frequent convention shown in LWL reviews. "We see the not-so epic finale in a long, almost dream-like, trance- with fades going shot to shot and idealistic lighting that truly makes you think about what is happening on screen."

QUESTION 2: HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND YOUR ANCILLARY TASKS?

Transcript:

I feel that our portfolio; the short film, poster and review, would work well together in a commercial context to market and distribute the short film. The ancillary tasks both work as marketing for our film and as such we have thought carefully about the way in which we would entice our audience into watching it through these mediums. Due to the nature of short films trailers are inapplicable, as they’d give too much away about the plot, so these two ancillary products are vital in the marketing of a short film.

The target demographic must be the ones that will look at our poster and review in order to watch the film; and the opposite must be done so the film will attract said demographic. The film is targeted at both males and females ages 16 to 24 as this is the age group that will relate to the events depicted in the film.

Our poster was heavily influenced by the research that we conducted in order to follow typical poster conventions. Said conventions were then used to our advantage in the process of making it; resulting in a professional looking poster with eye-catching imagery and text. The image summed up the film without delving into it too deeply; keeping an enigma in order to attract the audience.  The two different characters, whom had the same actor, give part of the film away; perhaps they could simply be twins? The dark colouring surrounding the poster, however, suggests something far more sinister. As such the poster shows the film for what it is; a dark tale- something that the audience would be likely to watch.  The font of the title is the same font used in the film itself; creating a ‘brand’ of this shattered text; again, reflecting the themes of the film- a shattered mind.  This branding also allows the audience to immediately associate the poster to the film, making this association to be known means the audience will be far more likely to see the film knowing the poster is based off it.

The demographic chosen would also be pleased to see, what looks like, a strong female lead character. We’ve twisted this, however, but eventually it does look that way. A female lead is not typically associated with short films (‘Alone’, ‘UFOh Yeah’, ‘The Black Hole’ and ‘The Device’ all lack a female lead) which we hope will cause our short film to be far more appealing to watch. The poster delves deeply into the split personality disorder, though it isn’t quite obvious at first glance. The way that the two character’s facial expressions are shown is the first example; with one clearly the timid and scared one while the other is fierce and aggressive. This theme that we built the film on wouldn’t particularly appeal to our audience; however, the events that surround the film do draw the audience in- the apocalyptic scenario; the quest to return home to family; the lack of feeling self-worthy; constant pressure and scrutiny- all these combined are what our audience Is either going through or have gone through in the past. All of these make our film that much more relatable for the audience; and the facial expressions shown in the poster and the darkness that surrounds the two characters reinforce that tenfold. As such, our audience will want to see this film; to get to know the character who suffers at the hands of her own mind- shown again through our use of poster imagery.

Our review is a massive part of a marketing campaign; no matter what the audience will see it and it will heavily impact whether or not they will go (if it’s an original film.) Little White Lies, the magazine we’ve based our review off of, has a demographic of 18 to 30 year olds; half of their demographic is not applicable to our short film. The psychographic of Little White Lies are people who live in an urban area with a lot of free time; typically as they’re studying in university or have a light work load. These people enjoy arts and, as such, enjoy film- making them a key audience we would want to attract. The language used in our short film will draw all parts of the Little White Lies audience so our film will reach a wider range of people than expected; the use of language conventions used is a huge selling point for the Little White Lies audience: so the language used had to be eye-catching and memorable. Not only that, though, there is the ‘rating system’ which will either make or break a film; with the 3 categories high there’s a very large chance that the audience will go to and watch the film being advertised.  The downside of a review is they can be bad; a bad review will ensure that your film will fail as no one wants to see a film that will waste your time and leave you with no entertainment gained.

Little White Lies has an iconic ‘house style’ which their demographic enjoy heartily.  This house style has several different features; the main being the subtle discussion of film theory which, as the demographic have likely studied films, cause the audience to read between the lines about what is being said; about how well a film has used film theory to convey different messages. And if there’s a distinct lack of theory used in the review, there’s a lack of it in the film- in turn, suggesting it was a bad film.

The second to last final piece of marketing a short film would typically use would be a film festival.  At a film festival a short film could be screened and, afterwards, would go on to social media- creating a ‘buzz’ about how good the film was; our final marketing strategy. This would introduce tonnes of new audience members who’d follow their favourite director or actor on twitter, a social network, who’d been to that film festival. Such an occurrence is likely at the Cannes Film Festival; where hundreds of actors and directors go and then tweet and post to Facebook what they thought about the film.  Low budget films will not have a large budget whatsoever when it comes to marketing; so free advertising at a film festival and via social networking is vital to a short film’s success. As such, it will likely be hosted on the internet on YouTube or Vimeo, a place where our audience practically live. In doing this, our target audience are largely exposed to our film and are in a position to watch it freely.

QUESTION 3: WHAT HAVE  YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

About our demographic:

• Our audience consisted of people the same age and social standing as our main protagonist, as these people will be more able to link emotionally to her. As such, males and females from ages 16 to 24 are the demographic we have always aimed towards. This audience will be the most hit by the themes and issues in the film. As we are all allocated in this demographic it was also an easier plot to write, seeing what our response to the film would be was the first bit of feedback we'd receive. 

• Our main theme is a mental disorder; split personality disorder and hallucinations of that personality. We think, and hope, that this will not only shed light on mental disorders for those without prior knowledge but also will cause a much larger audience response. Through the opening we show our protagonist as any ordinary girl, we don't fully see the plot details until later: when we finally know that there's no one left alive, and that she's got this disorder. This fact makes the whole situation surreal; and it could happen to any of our audience- especially when they 'go away' for a while (University.)

Where we got our audience feedback:

• Face to face communication was the biggest by far, with getting feedback from our teachers, other students, family and co-workers. Sadly, this could rarely be documented- however, it proved useful to shaping the way the film ended. Luckily, most thoughts said face to face were later reimbursed via other communication methods. 

• Skype was a vital communication tool, used to contact other members of the group and also for audience feedback- as this is where I'd mostly go for it. It's not as much of a social networking site as Facebook is however it proved more reliable for getting responses from people. 

• Facebook of course. We had to use this massive social network site to get the most feedback, sadly though we had a small amount of responses. Due to its nature we thought that our demographic would spend the most time here, and thus more likely to take notice of some of our requests for feedback. 

• Strawpoll, this site was our number 1 source of all polls that we had. It was a useful tool to receive feedback from, especially when our audience could input their own answer. The surveys conducted on this site were the simple 'yes' or 'no' type questions, though we did go for other ones too but not as frequently. This is simply because it'll be easier reading for two different answers than a bunch more. Additionally, surveys that were conducted here always influenced the way our film was heading; as this was a direct response from the audience. 

• Finally, we used Blogger to get some audience feedback, particularly on posts that we've made that required a little more ironing out. With Blogger it was easier to say what we wanted quickly as it's pre-written down. Furthermore, we could show our audience the work that went into the shooting of a particular shot so they could get an enhanced understating of the process whilst giving us more of a response. Blogger was bad at getting comments, however, it proved useful combined with the other websites used.

The feedback we recieved on:

The Short Film:

Title: 

Our title through development was "The way home", however we did want to change it to something more fitting to the film. The title is the first thing the audience will notice and so it has to be something that the audience likes; therefore, by asking our audience that exact question, we could hardly go wrong. As such, we each asked different people what the title should be. We made a short list, found here, and sent it off to various people. The responses mostly favoured 'Second Self', a catchy title (with alliteration)  which perfectly describes our film. We have learnt from this that our audience likes a film title which explores the film instead of states what it is. We have also learnt that a title may not be the one you wanted (I wanted to stick with 'The way home'- I guess I'm just bland) but you have to make exceptions, and I'm glad we changed it.

Jack was a media student from Birmingham so it's evident he knows what he's talking about

The Plot:

We made a blog post (here) a while back detailing our initial productions. We all initially agreed that a post-apocalypse would be a fun film to create a plot and story for. However, did our audience agree?

Thankfully, they did! And so, we began planning for that idea. As we are our target audience- we wanted to make a film that we'd go out of our way to see- we knew this was a good first step. Our audience taught us this first, and so we'd try and stick to whatever they'd have to say about our production. 

Perhaps giving the option to send their own answers in wasn't the best

Well, it didn't go that way unfortunately. We asked secondly what type of apocalypse it will be,(my hopes was Alien as that's the easiest to create), and the responses came back as "bio warfare". How would we possibly create that with a budget of nothing? It's definitely something to keep for the future, when we're famous and with a lot of money to cash out on a film, but it was un-obtainable for us. We knew what the audience wanted yet we couldn't deliver, so instead we kept what caused everyone to disappear a secret- hidden, an enigma- to make the focus on our protagonist's journey and not the apocalypse itself. From this small bit of feedback we see what the audience wants and how hard it is to sometimes deliver that want. So, instead of disappointing with a cliché plot line, riddled with too much repetition, we've left it ambiguous. In the end this choice changed a lot about our film; where we could have had parts explaining what had happened to everyone else we've left it blank- the audience can choose their own back story if they so choose.

We also used Strawpoll to see if our audience liked an editing effect that we desperately wanted to try out in the film. The effect was how we'd portray the two different characters as the same actor; the hallucination and the real girl. From the poll we found ourselves confident to try this in the real film. The audience seemed to really like this effect at the time and so, with their feedback, tried to make the actual scenes in the film more prominent and eye-catching for the audience- so they can really see the effect. Furthermore, if we didn't conduct this poll we likely wouldn't have put as much emphasis on the second dialogue session with both the  hallucination and Eve. 

In retrospect:

We did a final piece of audience feedback asking for the viewers response from the film. Below is my first response:

Gerald's response to the film 

From this first written perspective on our film it really shows that our goal for the audience was partially met. In question 4 we wanted the viewer to really question the ending, as we don't see the father. And so, Gerald had the perfect viewer response that we wanted- wondering if it's a new hallucination of her father. Gerald also enjoyed the film, which is a major plus side to the whole endeavour seeing as someone has enjoyed it. It seems that he felt enlightened about the themes of the film. This now tells us what we have learnt from this film; that viewers will understand the tone and genre of the film when it is needed. We also see how a lack of stereotypes caused him to relate to our protagonist even though they are completely separate. We can see really clearly that Gerald felt connected to our protagonist. It was also a relief that the plot did not confuse him as, which meant that he have learnt how to convey the plot line and story line while remaining enigmatic.

  I got a second piece of retrospective feedback from another Skype user who fits perfectly in our target demographic for the audience; a male aged 18 years old. From what he said the point that the 'second self' is her inner demons wasn't made perfectly clear in a way that we wanted. From this audience feedback we've attempted to edit it in a cleaner way to hopefully show the 'second self' as a more villainous inner-self. We are thankful that it was still enjoyable for him despite his confusion, and we're glad we led him to keep watching to the end of the film. The themes and issues weren't clear enough for him and so we've learnt that these types of issues must be made crystal clear for the audience to feel the impact that we wanted them to feel. Empathy is a strong emotion so the fact that it did play a part was a small success, however we've now also learnt to play with that a bit more in order to strain the audience's reaction; to have a powerful reaction.  The ending wasn't as good as an impact for James as Gerald's, so this could be a small age difference playing part or the different experiences in life. Either way, we've learnt how to fully grasp the audience from James's review and how to truly play a character, unfortunately it wasn't the way we did it. 

The poster:

Our poster had to set the tone of the film; and this does it well. Unfortunately I only received one piece of written feedback from it, despite the people who liked it. In a way, it shows that nothing needs much improvement and is instead a good poster. Retrospectively, my brother (if you could tell from the last name ps: he was a member of the target audience at 21 years old) said that it was a little too dark. Thankfully, he saw that the two characters are the same. From this it's clear that posters may look clever after you've seen the film but are much harder to get the idea of when you've got little to no idea about what's going on. Perhaps the audience want a more revealing poster, a tag line may have worked well telling a little bit about the plot.

I got a second and third opinion on it from my Skype chat, whom felt that it was a good poster. However, we have learnt that the audience wanted more out of the facial expressions and that the real girl, Eve, should be looking more bitter. We, again, have seen that the need for a tagline is prominent.

The Review 

With the review we got face to face feedback, as it was difficult to upload a copy of our draft online for people to look at, we did, however, get feedback from our final review online. From feedback we have created 3 versions of our review: a draft, a second draft and the final version. The final review can be seen here. From each individual change we have learnt, from the feedback, how to write a review in a way which entices the reader into reading further into the review. We've also stuck with the layout conventions that the review has to follow. However, we could still improve. Our review, our audience said, was a bit too short. We kept trying to write more but we couldn't without breaking the conventions, or just waffling on far too much.

QUESTION 4: