Advanced Portfolio Evaluation Question 4 Jake Woolven

Advanced Portfolio Evaluation

Question 4 

Advanced Portfolio Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from audience feedback - Jake Woolven

Advanced portfolio Question 3 - What have you learned from audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a form of communication between the film makers and members of the audience during the production stage of the film. Audience feedback is used so that the creators of the film can get an insight into how the target audience are perceiving the film. They use this information to make changes to the film which would make the short film more appealing to them. When creating our short film, we had a target audience of young adults ranging from 17-25 and got feedback throughout the production stage which helped us improve our short film.

When getting audience feedback, there is numerous ways to get it such as asking face to face, surveys and using forums. We got our audience feedback by creating a Group chat on Facebook messenger consisting of 10 individuals from our target audience and sent them our short film. After they watched the short film, we asked what they did and did not like and discussed possible changes.

With this feedback, we made adjustments and rendered out key parts to see how the changes would affect the film, we then ran them back through the target audience to see if it improved the short film. The scenes we showed the target audience consisted of scenes 1,6 and 8 with the changes they suggested.

What they said ;

-For scene 1, a few felt that the walking at the beginning was slightly too long to counter this, we used jump cuts as they still showed the passing of time however it did so much more swiftly. 

-They also thought that it was unclear that the montage was intended to be so however, once we explained it they said it became more clear what was happening with the narrative. 

-They said it was very clear that the protagonist was happy which was intended and also saw that the friend had contrasting emotions. This was also the desired effect we wanted which had significance to the story line and made it make more sense to the audience. 

-For Scene 6 they saw that this was the protagonist trying to make new friends and seems happy when he does which is helped by a happy facial expression. 

-They also felt that the protagonist looked lonely and therefore felt sympathetic for him this is because loneliness and depression is a common thing within the target audience.

-We said we had an idea of doping this on a computer monitor but there was lines going across it when we tried to record the screen so we decided to go with a mobile device as they do not have this problem when recorded .

-We were also advised to remove text we had at the bottom of the screen as it made it seem more unprofessional and was unnecessary.

-With scene 8, we were told that the music at the end was not loud enough. To counter this, we slightly increased the volume without it becoming overpowering.

-They also said it was clear what he was going to do and was content with himself. With the use of a cliffhanger, there was a certain amount of mystery added to the narrative. 

After acting on our audience feedback, as a group we watched the newly edited footage and decided if we were happy with the changes and how the film came together.

With this new footage, we re-asked our target audience and also had a session in college to show the film to people within our target audience. From our classmates who fall into our target audience, we got the following responses. 

With this new feedback, we adjusted some more parts of our short film. We were advised to make the ending more dramatic by increasing music volume which we were previously told however were not sure how much to increase it before it became overpowering or too loud for the situation.

 We also found out that with the use of the Facebook Messenger chat, the audience could see where we renamed one of our group members to make the narrative more believable. However, due to time restraints we were unable to re-shoot this part. Later on in scene 6, we were advised to re-shoot the facial reaction of the protagonist when he find a new friend as it seems forced and over exaggerated. But, because of the time we had, we could not do so. We also had to consider that none of the people we casted were actors or drama students so it might be difficult for them to do some scenes. 

 We also changed props during recording. This may have broken continuity, however, we did not want to waste time on re-shooting the shot on the bridge. We changed the phone prop as the second one we used had a larger screen which would make it more visible when we recorded it. From this feedback multiple groups thought the ending was a little 'lack luster'. This is due to the sounds we used. We did not to make the ending too shocking as we wanted there to be an element of mystery to if the protagonist was hit or not and we felt that the sounds we used and not making them too loud enabled us to do so. Adding to this, they believed that it was a little too long. To change this we could have cut the longer scenes speeding them up however, we intended it to be long as it was meant to be a slower pace and an emotional scene which we believe would not have the same effect if it was faster paced.  

Alone - Final Short Film Production

Alone - Final Short Film Production

Here is the final short film production that we have created:

Final Short Film Poster

Final Short Film Posters

Here are the final short film posters that we will be submitting:

Sam Swinson's Poster

Connor Hilton's Poster

Jake Woolven's Poster







Alone Little White Lies Short Film Review

Alone Little White Lies Short Film Review

Jakes Template

For the review, we will use a similar format to this, however we will be changing the font, text size and images to work with our short film. This will also be so it matches the style of a little white liars review.

We will be using InDesign as it is well optimised for the task we will be doing.



Language and mode of address

Language and mode of address in

little white liars

In little white liars, there is advanced language and techniques used to communicate with their mature demographic who will understand this. Examples of these consist of; metaphors, puns, restricted code, puns and complex sentences.

Little White Liars generally has around 5-7 paragraphs consisting of different topics. In paragraph one, there is historical and political context. In paragraph two, there is also historical and political contexts however with a link to the protagonist, this also has summery information. In paragraph three, they introduce the protagonist and talk about key themes, issues and plots. In paragraph four, they talk about narrative devices, narrative devices are techniques used by the writer or director to tell the story. This is continued in paragraph five when they talk about genre and how it is adapted for the certain film. In paragraph six, their is a personal account of what the reviewers thinks of the film. finally, in paragraph seven, the full summery with summery sentence. this is to give a final opinion and rating of the film.


In some reviews, they use colloquial language. This is better known as slang and is used to communicate with younger audiences so the review can appeal to a larger demographic. Some reviewers use very informal language such as swear words, this is to express their opinions and to get rapport with the younger generations.


In the little white liars reviews, they incorporate snapshots from the film. This is to make the review more interesting and give insight into the film without spoilers. They may also be used to appeal to a larger demographic as it is colourful and seems more interesting than block text.



Planning the Draft for the Short Film Review - Short film Review

Planning the Draft for the Short Film Review - Short film Review

Before we started to create a draft for our short film review we sat down as a group and created a plan for the draft. This included mapping out the paragraphs that would be involved in the review and the rating for the short film. Also, we decided roughly what the summary review sentences are going to be.
Suggested by:
- Connor
- Sam
- Jake

Paragraph Plan:

1) Context: 

• In this paragraph, we will mention the director of the film and will link the director to the AS coursework that we created because we created a thriller opening and this short film has elements of a thriller film within it.

2) Summary information and character:

• Introduce the protagonist
• Introduce the friend
• Talk about the aims of the film which are for the audience to know that the protagonist is lonely and try to get the audience to sympathise with him.

3) Genre and Plot:

• Overview of the plot of the short film without spoiling the ending for the reader.
• Talk about the genre of the short film which is social realistic that deals with the real issues that can affect the target audience. 
• Also, there are elements of a thriller film.

4) Narrative Devices:

• Talk about Todorov and the clear use of his narrative structure.
• Talk about how the characters help develop the narrative.

5) Reviewer Experience:

• Suggest how the Little White Lies audience will react to the short film and if they would like it.
• Summary sentence to end the review.

Rating:

The Little White Lies Magazine uses 3 parts to its rating system and we discussed what rating our short film should get for all of these parts. Also, we have come up with a rough outline for the sentence about these parts. 

• Anticipation: 4 - Intriguing character development keeps the audience interested.
• Enjoyment: 3 - Sympathetic social realistic short film.
• In Retrospect: 3 - A strong build-up with a less than appetising ending.

All of this information will be used to create a first draft for the review for our short film. However, none of this information is definite meaning that it can be changed at any point.

Little White Lies Target Audience - Little White Lies Research - Review Research

About Little White Lies:

Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.

Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, LWLies has been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.”

Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.

Source: http://lwlies.com/about-us/

Target Audience:

Little White Lies is a magazine that is read by a wide range of people. The magazine has a price from £4.00 up to £6.00 which can be expensive. They also offer a subscription service which starts at £29.00 which pays for 6 issues of the magazine. Because of this, the magazine could be considered a luxury and therefore would be aimed at middle class people. 

Little White Lies is also read by people within a large age group, with an interest in film, from 16 up to 35 year olds. However, the main audience is between people aged 25 to 35 obviously with an interest in film. 

The reason the magazine can be appreciated by a large audience is because of the high quality production and the style of the magazine. Each individual magazine has a specific them, usually accompanying the release of a film. Such as December 2016's issue having the theme of Star Wars: Rogue One. 

Little White Lies also uses many social media websites to get the word out for the magazine such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Tumblr. This mainly appeals to the slightly younger portion of their target audience as younger people tend to use social media more than older people. 

Little White Lies Layout Conventions - Little White Lies Research - Review Research

Little White Lies Layout Conventions - Little White Lies Research - Review Research

As a group, we have to create a review for our short film. This review has to be created in the style of the Little White Lies Magazine. The layout of our review will be vital in making it look like it was from the Little White Lies Magazine. Therefore, to make sure that the review looks professional and like it was from the magazine we have had to do some research into the layout conventions of the magazine.

Main Page:

The main page is not a traditional A4 size instead the page size that Little White Lies use is 245mm by 195mm.

Image:

At the top of every short film review in Little White Lies, there is an image that is relevant to the film that is being reviewed. This image will most likely be edited in Photoshop, which is an image editing package, before it is put into the desktop publishing application like InDesign.

The image has very specific dimensions which are a height of 77mm and 168mm in width. So what we will do is create a box within the template for the review that has these measurements and then when we have edited the image that we would like to put in this space we will just drag it into the box.

Title:

The title of the short film appears just bellow the image. This is quite a large text size with a bold font to make it stand out to the reader so that it is clear to them. The font for this text is Century Gothic.

Information About The Film:

Just below the short film title, there is some information about the film. This information is in a small font using the Aparajita font using both the bold and italic font styles. The information that is included in this is the director, the actors that star in the film and the release date of the film.

Content:

The main content of the review is split into 3 columns. Each of the columns is 101mm by 54mm, however, the column that is to the right of the page is only half the size of the others to make room for the rating system that Little White Lies gives to all of the short films that they review. Also, at the very start of the main content, there is a drop cap that takes up 3 lines. The font for the drop cap is Century Gothic and then the font for the rest of the main content is Aparajita.

Review Rating:

Little White Lies has a unique rating system that they use to rate all of the short films that they review. They use a 1 to 5 rating system with 3 different areas. The areas are Anticipation, Enjoyment and In Retrospect. There will be a little comment with each area and then an overall score for each area out of 5.

Page Number:

At the bottom of the page, there is a page number. The interesting thing about this is that it has a 0 in front of the number. Also, most of the reviews tend to the towards the back of the magazine so when we create our we must make sure that the number is above page 60.

Review:

On the side of the page, there is text that says REVIEWS. This is a small text size and it is in the Microsoft Yahei font.

Adjusting my poster

When making the poster for the first time, I accidentally set the size to A4. This meant that when I went to print it onto A3, it was stretched and became pixelated. To fix this, I made a new project and made it fit to A3. I also adjusted all the layers from my original poster to fit to an A3 background

Audience Research For First Render of Short Film - Audience Research

Audience Research For First Render of Short Film - Audience Research

We have created a first render of our short film. This is not the final product that will be submitted, however, it is very close to how the final product will look and sound. What we are going to do is show the rendered short film to 10 members of the target audience. We will show each member the short film multiple times. Then we are going to ask them a few questions:

• What did you think of the short film?
• Could you clearly understand why the protagonist wanted to kill himself?
• Do you think the protagonist ended his life?
• Was it clear the protagonist was lonely?
• Was it clear that the protagonist was content with killing himself?
• Are there any issues in the image editing that stood out to you as you watched the short film?
• Are there any issues with the sound editing that you noticed when you watched the short film?
• Were there any parts of the short film that didn't make sense or made the short film boring?

Before we showed the short film to the group of the target audience we had a group screening with all the group members. During this, we had a look at some aspects of the short film and made sure that we were happy with the final product that we had created. The main thing that we changed is we got rid of the text that said "The next day". This is because we felt that it made the short film look less professional and it is not normally seen in real short films. This meant that we had to create a black screen between scene 1 and scene 2 to make it clear that it was a different day between the two scenes.

The Video We Showed:

The Feedback:

• What did you think of the short film?

All the people that viewed the film said that they enjoyed watching it. They said that it wasn't too long which could have made it boring, however, it was not too short so that information could have been missed. Also, lots of the viewers noticed the subtle repetition within the short film which was used to emphasise certain parts of the film, for example, in the scene where the protagonist sees his friend again and then the friend disappears. 

• Could you clearly understand why the protagonist wanted to kill himself?

All of the members of the audience understood why the protagonist wanted to kill himself. However, some of the members of the audience thought that the protagonist killing himself  was very extreme. They felt that if the story was more explanatory showing that he has been lonely for a very long time then it would have made more sense for the protagonist to think about suicide. 

• Do you think the protagonist ended his life?

The short film left a cliff hanger which all of the members of the audience really liked about the short film. They liked it because it left them some uncertainty about whether he would have actually tried to commit suicide or not. This is what we wanted the audience to think. Also, we asked whether they think that he went through with the suicide or not. Some of the people said yes because they assumed that this person didn't have any friends for a long time. On the other hand, most of the people though that he didn't kill himself they just thought that he was thinking about it. As a group, we felt that the protagonist wouldn't have killed himself because it would have been a very drastic thing to do.

• Was it clear the protagonist was lonely?

All of the members of the target audience said that they could clearly see that the protagonist was lonely. Also, they said that they liked how the protagonist was doing things on his own that he used to do with his friend, however, he is doing them on his own. This adds a good element of repetition to the short film.

• Was it clear that the protagonist was content with killing himself?

Most of the audience could tell the protagonist was content with killing himself. They said that the final shot in the short film showed that he was content with killing himself. We were worried about this shot because it was very hard to convey to the audience that the protagonist was content because the protagonist was not played by an actor. However, some of the audience were a bit confused with the last shot and they said it would have been better to show that he was content in a better way. Also, they said that once we told them that the protagonist was meant to be content with killing himself then they could see it more clearly from the final shot.

• Are there any issues in the image editing that stood out to you as you watched the short film?

They said that they couldn't see any major issue with the image editing in the short film. However, one thing they did say was the during shots where there is a lot of movement the was a slight blur or ghosting around the movement. This was an issue with the camera and the export that we did notice, however, there were a lot of still shots in the short film that were in focus and not blurry so we decided to leave this issue. Also, it would be very hard to get rid of all of the blurriness that appeared in the short film.

• Are there any issues with the sound editing that you noticed when you watched the short film?

They said that there was only one noticeable issue with the audio of the short film. This was that at the end of the short film the car screeching sound only played through the left speaker of their computer. This is not a huge issue because the sound is still clear, however, this is a small detail that makes the short film seem less professional.

• Were there any parts of the short film that didn't make sense or made the short film boring?

The final question that we asked the group were any parts of the short film boring. All the people that view our short film said that none of the parts of the short film were boring. This is good because during the editing process we made sure to be thorough when choosing what should be in the short film to make sure that anything that was in the short film was relevant to developing the story or intriguing the audience.

Poster Draft Jake

For our poster, we all had to make a draft with different idea. This is so that we could get range of choice when it came to deciding which one we were going to use. For my poster, I wanted to create a dark theme to show the protagonists emotions in the short film to display narrative. To do this I used a portrait orientation to get a large image of the protagonist in the shot. I used shading to make the protagonists face darker and look more emotional.

Title sequence for short film

For our title sequence, we used a shot of our protagonist and friend walking towards the camera. We used this because we wanted the audience to see them together right as the short film began. This was to show their intimacy, it also has relevance as you seer the protagonist happy with his friend and later on in the short film, the audience sees him in a different way without his friend. We spaced the letters of the title apart to symbolise the loneliness of the protagonist within the short film. When filming, we framed the shot to purposely leave space for the title.

Jakes poster draft ACTUAL POSTER

American honey - poster research

American Honey

American honey is about a teenage girl who decides to join a magazine sales crew and starts ;partying, breaking the law, young love and travelling with a group of other youths. 

MRANG Concepts

- Audience

- Genre

- Representation

Audience

The Audience this would appeal to is most probably the young adult age group. This is because its possibly something they would want to do and therefore can relate to the characters. This could also appeal to a middle aged audience. This is because it could remind them of their youth and could be nostalgic making them want to watch it. 

Genre

The genre of this could be seen due to the clear image of what we assume is the protagonist. This could be seen as social realism as it has a real character possibly looking for a ride to hitchhike. It could also be seen as a drama as it has real characters going though unexpected experiences in America.

Representation

From the underlying theme of America with red, white and blue, we can assume it is set or the protagonist is possibly American. From the image of the protagonist, we can see that she has tattoos. This could suggest her youth or being 'different from the crowd.' From how the stars are falling onto the protagonist, it could connote that she wants the American lifestyle or thinks she will find her way there. As there is nothing around her and all we can see is the sky, it connotes freedom linking into the theme of the American lifestyle.

Structure

The orientation of this film poster is portrait. This is to the full image of the protagonist in focus for the audience to see. With this, we see the Title at the top surrounded by big stars such as Shia Labeouf. This is a common convention when films have big stars in as fans of the actor will be more likely to go watch it and, may make people regard the film as better as it has bigger stars.

Couple in a hole - poster research

Couple in a hole

Couple in a hole is a short film about a middle aged couple from Scotland who live in a man made cave in France. After their son dies, the mother becomes depressed. After a while, her condition deteriorates and the farther makes his last stand and tries to repair their life.

 MRANG Concepts

- Representation

- Genre

- Narrative 

Representation

This short film poster appears to be made from snapshots from the film. This is to give insight into what is happening and who the characters are. From this, we see that the characters appear to be poor or possibly unemployed. This is because they have little to no clothing when we see it and the pail white skin suggesting they are not healthy. From the tree, Combined with the tree, we can infer that they possibly life in forest, or they are all one large family, the tree symbolising the family tree.

Genre

The Genre of this short film is portrayed well through the poster. First, from how the characters are shown arguing and mid reaction, it gives the impression that it is social realism as their is conflict between the characters. It could be argued as a drama for the same reasons. However, it may be over exaggerated for entertainment purposes. This is also because with the dead tree and pale white skins of the characters, it could symbolise death therefore linking in to the drama genre.

Narrative

At the top of the tree in the poster, we can see the same women multiple times. This could be showing how she changes through the story. We can assume this is the protagonist as she appears multiple times bringing the attention of the audience to her wherever they look. From how the tree appears to be holding up all the characters with a larger women in the middle, it could connote that they are her memories.

Structure 

This poster is in landscape. This is so that we can get a full view of the image of the tree with the characters in it. It also leaves space for the producers to put extra information in such as reviews, billing blocks, awards and much more which is a common convention for posters.

Poster research - The Gravediggers son

The Gravediggers son

The Gravediggers son is a gothic horror by Jake Yard about a gravedigger in poverty who is struggling to make ends meet for his son. Unable to do so he resorts to grave robbing which leads to "haunting consequences." 

MRANG concepts

- Genre

- Representation
- Audience


- The title of this short film is prominent as it makes you assume the character underneath it is the gravedigger. This is useful to the audience so they have some insight to the short film.
- The director of this short film is clear at the top of this poster, this infers that he has made other short films which possibly means people may want to watch this as it was directed by him.
- In the lower part of the poster, we can see the awards that it has. This may make people more likely to watch it as it infers the short film is worth watching.

Genre



The Genre of this short film is likely thriller or horror. This is because of the image used in the poster. As it has quite a dark theme it connotes a dark theme within the short film which suggests it could be a horror. It could also be a Thriller because of the dark theme. However, it could also partially be social realism, this is because it is mainly about a farther trying to care for his son.

Representation

In this short film, the representation of the gravedigger is that he is working class. This is because of his profession, grave digging, which is unskilled labour inferring he is not paid very much. From this poster, we could also infer that the gravedigger has a dark personality. This is because he is surrounded by darkness possibly reflecting his personality.

Audience

The audience this poster would attract is an older audience. This is because is has a deep story line behind it of parent hood for the poor which older audiences who have children could relate to. However, it may appeal to young adults because it has a certain mystery behind it due to dark lighting and the use of the back ground image complementing it.

Structure

The structure of the poster is in portrait, this is so we can get a full body shot of, what we can assume,  is a character from the short film with the title, awards and billing block all clearly visible for potential audiences.  

Use of posters

Posters

Posters are used to gain awareness for a product. To do this they are put in areas with a large amount of traffic so that the most people possible see it. When creating the poster producers will think about how to make it stand out in towns and cities. They also tend to use a snapshot of the film to create "hype" about the film to make a larger profit. To do this, they could use colours which stand out like green and red or, they could go with the approach of placing them in clear areas like on busses which move around also making the poster visible to a larger audience.

 

 



Short Film Poster research - Saurora

Saurora

Saurora is a short film directed by Pavel Siska which is an underwater rescue mission on a remote planet centred around two co-workers in heavy submersible suits which takes an unplanned course.

MRANG concepts

- Genre

- Media Language

- Audience

- In this poster, the title and tagline standout. This is because the producers want the audience to see this as it has rhetorical questions creating enigma possibly making people want to watch the film.

- The poster appears to have a snapshot from the short film, this makes people wonder what happens as the poster looks interesting to audiences. In the shot we can also see the face of one of the actors. This infers that this is the protagonist giving some information about the film.

- This poster has a dark theme as it relates to the short film which appears to be a thriller or action thriller. This is apparent due to the tagline and background image for the poster.

- At the bottom of the poster there is an of information about the film, and in this we can see they have made a Facebook page. This is good advertising as Facebook is used by a vast amount of people and can be good for gaining publicity.

Genre

The genre of this short film is most probably action thriller. This is because of the snapshot creating enigma but, is a snapshot of what appears to be a fight scene making the audience think it has aspects of action in it.

Media Language

By the image used in this we can see that the short film is possibly based underwater. This is because of the blue tint and suits worn by the characters. The font used has a light blue tint making it seem like it is freezing over. This infers that it is set deep underwater explaining the suits for water pressure and as it would be very cold due to there being little to no sunlight. This is also supported by the tagline "who will you become under pressure" which denotes they are underwater.

Audience

The audience for this short film would most probably be a teen or young adult demographic. This is because it has a genre which is appealing to this age group due to being interesting and exciting keeping the audience entertained.

Structure

This poster is in portrait. This could be because the producers wanted to get as much of the character in the shot as possible and keep the surrounding secluded to create enigma. This would also make room for all the text they wanted to have on to poster whilst not getting in the way of the background image.