Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Here is question 3 of my evaluation, i hope you enjoy it.

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

For the construction of my short film i used lots of different media technologies. For example, when trying to find an idea for my film i was looking through a website called Youtube, which is a site where anyone can upload videos to, on this site there is millions of short films, and also feature films. So this is where i went for inspiration. After weeks and weeks of looking through short films on here i decided that i would create a futuristic short. After deciding this i then looked back at futurisitic shorts on youtube and tried to find what people liked within the films, so i could include them myself. Once id come up with my idea and plot for gas man, i then decided to share this idea on social media, so i could get some feedback as to whether this was something people would want to watch or whether i'd need to start brainstorming for a whole new idea. Feedback i got was quite good, however i got some suggestions of little bits i could change, which i ended up doing.

Another way in which media technologies helped with the construction of my film is by helping me recruit a filming team. I used the social media site 'Facebook' to message people and find contacts who might be interested in acting in my film, or being behind the scenes. From doing this it meant i could find people who were interested in drama, and also in film generally. I ended up recruiting my whole team via facebook. Facebook also helped with organising everything, i made a group chat with all the crew in it, so we could keep each other updated at all times, with times of filming, and when we were available etc. Being able to do this was a huge help and without this organising everything would have been extremely difficult.

A third way in which media technology was used was to create this blog itself. By using blogger it meant i could update everyone with how my film was going, and how i was going about doing so. Aswell as all the preparation i had put into it. I have uploaded everything i have done over the year to this blog, including my film, poster and magazine review. This lets the whole world have a chance of seeing it meaning i could get feedback from others and also look back to see this in the future so i could see what needs improving and what doesn't when i do this again.

Media technologies also helped massively with my evaluation. I wouldst have been able to do a single bit of my evaluation without some of the websites and software. For example, i have used Pezii to create a presentation for one of my evaluation questions, as i was hoping it would be something different to a normal blog, meaning people could enjoy it more. I also have made vlogs which i have uploaded to my blogs, in which i used editing software and cameras, which without, it obviously wouldn't have been possible. But of course the main thing i used in my evaluation was social media. I used this to gain all sorts of feedback about my film, mainly using survey monkey to create a survey and then posting this on facebook, along with a link to my film in order to get people to complete the survey. I found this extremely useful, it was so much quicker than asking for peoples feedback and opinions in person.

In conclusion media technologies helped me massively with the production of my film. It helped me develop my idea, create the film, advertise my film and also gain feedback about it. I would say that without the media technologies we have today i would have struggled massively to do all of this.

Evaluation question 2: How effective is the combination of your short film, your poster and magazine review?

In order to advertise my film and let people know about It, I decided to make a poster and also write a magazine review. By creating both of these I hoped it would make people want to see my short film, and ask questions about it. Together I think the poster and magazine done a fairly good job.

My magazine review - There are three main characters in my film, the two burglars, and also Rory the ARB. Because of this I decided I wanted all three of them to be in the main picture. From doing research into successful film magazine reviews I found that a lot of them used stills from the actual film, as I wanted all three characters to be in my review picture too I done the same thing. I think by doing this It leaves a lot of questions the audience want to ask, such as 'who is this hologram?' and 'what is going on?' and therefore may make them want to watch it for themselves. From this picture you can obviously tell the genre very easily too due to Rory the hologram being in it, this means sci-fi fans will automatically know its a film directed for them.

Social media is also a big part of everyday life for lots of people, and because of this I decided to add a '#GasMan' at the bottom of my review. People automatically know this is to do with twitter, and they can then look up this hashtag and see what people are saying about the film, and find any news about the film. Once again hoping this will make people more excited about the film and it gives them a chance to follow what is going on with Gas Man. Social media is free and a very easy way to gain a fan base.

My poster - Once again for my poster I thought very hard about the image I wanted everyone to see, I thought this one was even more important than the magazine review, and this would be taking up a whole page. After a long thought process I decided on making the ARB big and very dominating, towering above the two burglars who are struggling around on the floor. This tells people that the ARB is going to be stronger than the two burglars and something may happen to them. I was hoping this would leave the audience wanting to know more. The way I made this image was by using adobe after effects and taking two different stills from the film. I then keylighted the ARB unit out, and enlarged him to the size I want. I then added a red tint to him to make him look a bit more evil and menacing. After that I then took the second still, cut out the burglars and made them look small compared to the ARB towering over them. The last effect used on the poster was to make the title 'Gas Man' look all smokey. Yet another clue for the audience to be guessing why it is like that.

I added the month of which the film was due to be released, a review from a youtube channel and also a hashtag. The film date was on there to let the audience know when the film was due to be released, this would then give them the chance to see it as soon as possible, and also use the hashtag to talk about the film. The review from 'The media student' which is five stars is meant to show people how good someone else thought the film was, hopefully making them think they would enjoy it just as much. Finally the hashtag was put on there for the same reason as the magazine review. To get people talking and to gain a fan base.

In conclusion I would say that the combination of both my magazine and poster worked well together, they both showed little clues for the audience to find and give them things to think about, leaving questions in their mind and ultimately them wanting to see my film.

Evaluation question 1: How does your short film use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real short films?

for this evaluation question I decided to make it on prezi. This is only the second time I have used it but I think the end result was fairly good.
You can see my Prezi here: https://prezi.com/mj7str9mb3qx/evaluation-question-1/

How am i going to answer each of my evaluation questions

In order to see how well I have done with my coursework so far I have been given four evaluation questions, by answering these I will hopefully be able to understand what I have done well, and mainly what I could improve if I were to do this again. The four questions im going to be answering are:

1) In what ways does your short film use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real short films?

2) How effective is the combination of your short film and your poster magazine?

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

I will answer each of these in a different way, the first question I will be answering using prezi. Hopefully by using prezi I will be able to show how my film is similar to other real short films. The second question I will be answering by writing a blog post, with the possibility of adding videos and pictures to the blog post. The third question will be answered via a vlog of me. Hopefully there will be film footage of my audience giving feedback, aswell as answers from the questionnaires. The final evaluation question will possibly be a voice clip with animations/pictures on top. So I will be talking over it, this will hopefully give the effect im looking for however im not 100% sure I will be doing this one.

Updated magazine review

 

Here is an updated version of my magazine review. As you can see I added a part for social media.

Updated Poster

Here is an updated version of my poster, here you can see ive added social media taglines aswell andf production companys at the bottom.

Research in to my topic

In order to get a real understanding of how burglars work I have decided to do some research in to this topic. Hopefully getting an insight of how burglaries happen and what is most commonly stolen.

The first stat I went looking for is how many burglaries take place in the UK and Wales, to my horror I found out that a staggering 35000-40000 happen every single month, making that a total of 480,000 burglaries a year which works out at one every 54 seconds, that's more than one every minute! This number is also on the rise, between October and November 2014 burglaries had increased by just under 4%. This could be down to the fact Christmas would be coming around the corner so more people need money, or it could be a continuing thing and burglary is on the up.

I also wanted to looked at what was most commonly stolen during a burglary, these were the results I found:

1) Cash - This is because it does not have to be sold or traded and can be spent without being traceable, making it the favourite for any burglar.

2) Electronics - This is due to them being very valuable, a small tablet can be worth hundreds and the high demand for electronics making them easy to move on is also key for burglars.

3) Jewellery - Once again this is very small objects, generally with  a lot of value, making them east for burglars to steal. They're easy to sell and are also in high demand.

4) Medications - This is one I didn't expect to see on the list. This is due to two reasons, there is a big black market for drugs and also the users of drugs break in because they need them.

Behind the scenes

 

Here are some pictures from when we were filming 'Gas man'. As you can see from the photos below we had to use a lot of equipment in order to get the looks we were going for. For example, green screen, green screen lighting, boom mic, fig rig and cameras.

 

 

 

In this picture you can see us filming the dining room scene, here Rory is on the green screen in order for us to make him a hologram. We also have the two burglars just walking into shot, so we could get them both together on the same shot. We can also see Henry holding the boom mic in order to get the best sound possible.

 

 

 

Here is the bedroom scene. You can see Rory posing for a picture with the dead 'Master'.

 

This was how the bedroom looked when we had everything ready for filming, as you can see there is a lot going on.

 

Packing up #1

 

Packing up #2

 

 

Packing up #3 - all doing our fair share.

Questionnaire results

In order to find out what people thought of my film, poster and magazine I decided to ask them all some questions, in the hope I could find out what I should improve/change if I were to ever do this again.

film feedback

From the questions I asked people about my film I managed to find a lot out. One of the main things people said they liked was the hologram effect I used for the butler. They said it made it obvious it was futuristic and also made it much more scary, as its something not usually experienced. I also found out that people liked the idea of the story line, and said its unique with lots of suspense. however along with my feedback I also found many things which I could have improved. One thing mentioned multiple times was the smoke at the end of the film, it appears to come from no where and is also very thick on the screen, meaning you do struggle to see what is happening. My problem when making this was that i'm not very experienced on adobe after effects so editing was difficult, however if I were to do this again I would definitely spend more time finding out how to do things properly, so it gives it a more professional look. another thing which was mentioned multiple times was the tripod left in some of the footage, when filming I didn't see this and didn't have many takes at all, meaning once it came to editing it made it difficult to disguise this.

I asked a total of 37 people this set of questions, and for my final question 'would you recommend this to friends?' I got a total of 20 people saying yes, and 17 saying no. I can't say I am pleased with this response as obviously i'd always like it to be higher. However as it is the first short film I've made I think it is an okay response. I know now what I could do better so hopefully I could improve this next time.

magazine feedback

Once again from doing this research I found out lots of interesting things. Some improvements which were mentioned included, adding page numbers, the name of the magazine, the colour combination and also adding more text, there were a few more but I believe these were the ones people thought were most important. All of these are very small improvements which wouldn't take me too much time to do and from the sounds of it doing these would improve it massively, which definitely gives me things to do next time I do it. Some things which people suggested they liked included the idea of a short piece of text about each of the main actors and also the verdict section in it.

For this questionnaire I got a total of 27 people to answer it, and for the final question of 'Does this make you want to go and see the film?' 15 of the 27 people said yes. This is a very pleasing result that's over half the amount says they would like to see it  and for my first film I think that that is a fairly good result, one I am pleased with.

Poster Feedback

My poster was the first poster I have ever made, I made this on Adobe photoshop, something which I am not very common with. However despite this I showed people my poster and asked everyone to give me their feedback. One thing a lot of people said they liked was the smoke effect over the text, due to the film being called 'Gas man' I decided to make the writing look like gas, which people seemed to like. One other thing people said they liked was how the evil Arb was much bigger than the two robbers, because he is the dominant one in the film. however there were also things which people didn't like so much, for example the fact there isn't a release date, no actors names, not many reviews and the fact it was a little bit plain. I agree with all of these things, and think that they should definitely be added to future posters.

For the last question 'does this poster make you want to go and see the film?' I asked 20 people and 13 people said yes, which once again is just over half, which a result for me is one I am very pleased with.

Audience research questions

In order to see what people think of my Film, magazine and poster I have decided to write a short questionnaire and ask everyone who watches/reads to fill it out, then hopefully i'll be able to see what people think I can improve, and also what I've done well. Below are the questions im going to ask:

film

1) would you normally watch this genre of film? if you don't would this persuade you to watch them more often?

2) what did you like about my film?

3) what did you think I could improve about it?

4) Any comments on anything else?

5) would you recommend this to friends?


Magazine

1) What did you think of the presentation of my magazine review?

2) did you think there was anything I could improve?

3) What did you like about it?

4) does it make you want to go and see the film?

Poster

1) What did you think about the presentation of the poster?

2) Was there anything you think I could improve?

3) Is there anything you liked about it?

 4) does it make you want to go and see the film?

Gas Man

Here is another upload of my film 'Gas Man', i'm not sure whether this will be my finished film or not, theres a lot i'd like to improve but the time limits mean it may not be possible to do all of these.

Gas Man Magazine review

In order to advertise my film I need to create a magazine review for my film. After looking at other magazine reviews I had decided on a look and the features I wanted to include in my review. I decided to make this on word as its simple to do, but also can make things look fairly good. I took a screenshot half way through making my review so you can see my progress along the way. As you can see I didn't use a template to make this, I decided on a layout myself and created it from nothing. I decided to put the name of the film at the top and make it the biggest thing on the page, hoping it would make readers look at the name and remember it. In this screenshot I had also written a short verdict, along with a star rating system. I was also just starting a review of the actors as I took this screenshot. Overall I would say I am pleased with how the review has turned out, I like most things to do with it, however there are also things which I would change if I were to do it again. For example the name of the film at the top stands out, however I don't like the colouring of it, and it contrasts maybe a little bit too much. There are also things which I would need to add if this were going into a magazine, such as page numbers, the name of the magazine at the top and the section of the magazine this was in. However as I said generally I am pleased with the outcome and think it looks nice and does what it is supposed to, tell the reader about the film, and hopefully make them want to watch it for themselves.

Magazine reviews

In order to advertise my film we were told to make a magazine review, in order to do this I decided to look at other film reviews in some well established magazines and see what I liked, didn't like so I could then decide what I wanted my magazine review to have in it. The magazines reviews I looked at were 'Spider Man 2', 'Avatar' and finally 'Twilight'.

Spider Man 2

This is a magazine review of the film spider man 2. There are many things I both like and dislike about this review, the first thing I like is the picture on the right hand page, from this it shows you so much about the film, it shows the main character, What Spider man actually is and what genre the film will be, which is clearly an action. So for someone who has never seen spider man before they would be able to take a lot away from the picture alone. One thing I do dislike is where is says spider man 2, in my opinion this isn't big or bold enough and should stand out way more than it is doing, that way readers would remember it much more in my opinion. The second thing which I like about this is the verdict part at the bottom, here the editor writes his conclusion on the film, along with a star rating, which in this case was the full five stars. I think I will add something like that in my film so readers can see quickly whether it is worth a watch or not. There is also a short synopsis of what happens in this film so people can find out what the story is before they go and see it for themselves, this means if they find the synopsis interesting then they will be more likely to go and see them film to find out what its like.


Avatar

The second magazine review I looked at was on the film 'Avatar', this was the first big 3D film ever released, smashing the box office with $1.6bn. Once again, I both liked and disliked things about this film, my favourite thing about this review was the big bold name of the film. It has a red background behind it, which is much brighter than anything else on the page, attracting your eye right to it, this means the reader before they do anything else sees the name of the film, so therefore knows what they are reading about. In my film review I would hopefully recreate an effect similar to this one. Another thing I like about this review is the pictures, lots of pictures means readers have there own chance to judge what the film is about and whether they would want to watch it or not. Most of these pictures are action shots to making the film look exciting, like there's something happening all of the time, which after all is what viewers want when they are going to the cinema. The one thing I do dislike is the lack of writing, there isn't much of a review here, not even some sort of rating system meaning readers have to read the whole thing in order to find out whether the film is worth watching or not, if it were down to me I definitely would have added one.


Twilight

The third and final magazine I reviewed was based on the film Twilight, this is a film which I personally have never seen so reading this was very exciting for me, as I could see what its like for someone reading a review who has no idea what the film is about. As you can see from the picture the review is written on top of a picture from the film, this picture is of two people, a male and female looking deeply into each others eyes, for me this made me think that this would be a love film, about how these two characters relationship forms. As soon as you go to read the review you read 'A chick flick with serious bite', I like this a lot, it means the first sentence you read tells you about the film, and makes you want to read the rest to find out more about the film. Just like the Spider man 2 review there is a little verdict section at the bottom of the page, where the writer sums up the film and gives it a star rating, which I would love to have in my own review.


After looking at these three magazine film reviews I have seen many things which I want to add to my own review, such as pictures which explain the film themselves, a title which stands out and readers remember, a verdict section and much more. Along with things I decided I don't like and don't want in my review such as too little writing. From looking at this I will now attempt to create my own review.

Being ill!

Over the last month or so progress on my film has slowed down, I was on schedule to finish it before the Christmas holidays, however I became ill a week before we broke up. This lasted for over a fortnight meaning I was ill for the Christmas break, and also missed out on my opportunity to finish my film, and therefore have Christmas to be filming my evaluation questions. Now I am back ill take the opportunity and finish my film by Friday this week, leaving me a short period of time which I can make up to do the evaluation questions, hopefully having them done for Friday the 16th.