How Effective is the Combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

In conclusion, from my audience feedback, the use of theorists', the use of primary and secondary research and use of codes and conventions I believe that the combination of these pieces (my short film, film poster and double page spread) have lead me to create a combination of professional work that presents and conveys the ideas of creativity through an action adventure short film. My work is effective as it draws my audience members in with every aspect and overall I believe I have created a solid combination of work.

What Have I Learnt From My Audience Feedback?

How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

The technical codes of my short film in terms of camera work and editing follow similar characteristics of other short films. For example, before my title appears (another convention of films) my film opens with an establishing mid long shot. The idea of this was originally from PJ Ligouri's short film 'Smokey Saloon', in which PJ is doing an every day task of watching TV before the main adventure begins. My character is also doing an every day task of drawing which also links to this short film. Although you can't tell from these stills, both my short film and 'Smokey Saloon' open with a slow zoom which focuses on the main protagonist of the film. I wanted to use this as I felt that I gave a little bit of movement to a shot that would have otherwise been still. It keeps the interest of the viewer which is something I needed even though this was a very short film. Codes that relate to symbolism within this scene of my short film can be found the most at this point. This shot contains the most symbolism due to all the props that signify and relate to Japanese and Chinese film culture. The best way I found to relate this film to the old style of Japanese and Chinese action films was to place a large poster to the right to relate to the art style of the films and the origami to the left to represent the culture. The origami are actually paper cranes which have hidden connotations of their own. Origami paper cranes are known for hope and healing which is very fitting for this short film as the main character has to defeat her inner demons to heal herself and the book she is drawing in in this scene is what gives her hope.
My favourite film is 'Scott Pilgrim VS The World' and has many battle scenes inspired by the original comics which were drawn in an Anime style which has a clear link to traditional Japanese and Chinese films with action scenes. This film has given me a lot of inspiration, especially for the effects but also the camera work and editing. In one of the final scenes of 'Scott Pilgrim', Scott and Knives team up to fight the final battle. I liked the use of split screen here and so I decided to put this into my own short film to show the determination between the two enemies. This makes the audience focus on the eyes of the two teams and the determination as they are about to square up to one another. The reason as to why I focused more on the eyes of the characters and not the entire face like 'Scott Pilgrim' does is because I have heard that emotion is portrayed through the eyes alone and so I kept it to just the eyes.

Creative Processes

How is the theory Uses and Gratifications used within my A2 work?

Final Edit of Sketch

New Ending for Sketch

After relooking at my short film I felt that the ending wasn't strong enough. This will be the new ending to my short film.

Second Final Edit

Final Draft

Second Draft

First Draft

Audience Feedback

Whilst still editing my short film I thought it would be a good idea to get my Media Studies class to watch and say what they liked or would change about the short film Sketch. All these comments are anonymous as they were all written on a piece of paper but a lot have helped me change a few aspects of my short film.

- At the beginning, have one foot being placed over the doors ledge to show she's ready to take that step into her daydream.

- Love the good use of shots and green screen, the song during the credits adds to the kick ass theme. 

- Instead of a shoe, start drawing the sword as I was a bit confused. BUT I LOVED IT.

- The fading of the voices to the left and right speakers was brilliant! Made me jump.

- The Split screen -  how did you do it?

- The music throughout is BRILLIANT!

- The part where Ben (the guy in the jet pack) is in the air is good!

- Every single bit done with thought and precision

- Felt so much longer than 5 minutes - effective use of time

- The shots are precise and the music adds really good atmosphere.

- Sound effects are really good when the drawings are done

- Filming is so clear + precise, flows so well! Love the music

- Hardly anything to critique! Excellent choice of music and shots. bit confused whether you draw the characters or not. Maybe show that you draw them in a shot?

- The music is really effective and the dialogue works well. Only thing I noticed was when the characters appeared the music could cut a bit quicker. Otherwise AMAZING! You could fade out the music at the end as well.

RAW sound

Of course it would be impossible for me to produce all the music within my short film given the time BUT I've have recorded foley sounds and edited them within GarageBand to create layers and remove background sound. I did record some background music for my short film but I didn't compose it. Within the beginning of my short film there is some relaxing background music before the theme song of this film is used. I record this on my phone from a game I play which uses a lot of different sounds and music. From this game also I recorded the 'whoosh' drawing sound that is used every time a character is brought to life and when she awakes from her daydream.

Some of the whispering when the book talks to the girl was recorded myself and edited myself within GarageBand. I layered each different piece of speech before applying a 'clear vocals' layer, a 'luna bounce' layer and upped the Master Echo.

Below are the RAW recordings:

Editing - Sound

When developing the sound effects and possible background music for my short film there were many possibilities to consider and wasn't fully planned before all the editing. For instance, when first creating my short film I wanted to just add writing over the top to make it appear that the book was speaking to the main character. This idea originally came from Sherlock when he deduces someone from one look.  I felt this effect would go perfectly with the idea I had in mind and so used this as inspiration. I later got audience feedback on this and many said it was a little difficult to try and read all the words on the screen. To make it easier for the audience I applied layered sound over the top of people whispering what the book wanted to say. I edited this sound to have echos and wisps of sound to create a slightly eire tone. I recorded about 3-5 sounds for each page (image below of when this happens) which I then 

layered slightly over one another to make each piece flow. When the girl turned the page a new set of whispers would be set off. To also add an interesting sound effect to these whispers I was able to edit the sound so it would bounce from the left earphone to the right. This was done by changing the sound equaliser for speakers of each track to play louder on one side than it does the other. This overall gives a 3D sound effect which has proven to be very effective with my target audience.

For diegetic sounds I recorded my own foley which was used for the girl walking through the woods, the pencil writing on paper at the beginning of the film and general ambience sound which I recorded all off my phone. Without diegetic sounds the film appears flat and unprofessional. Even in many silent films or music videos where the music track is the only source of sound they will still add some diegetic sound to make the film appear more full. Because these sounds weren't recorded through the use of a boom mic the sound contains background sound which can be heard through earphones when listening to this short film. This makes my short film appear unprofessional but I was able to make it slightly better but editing the sound and so it is a little less noticeable. Sounds I didn't create myself but still add to diegetic sounds are the bird sounds over the top and the laser sounds. I wasn't able to record the ambient bird sounds as my mic wasn't powerful enough to record my own and the laser sound was something I couldn't record or produce on my own and so I used sounds from Logic and GarageBand to help. With the laser sounds I needed to sync this up with the timing of the laser being shot and so for this I zoomed in quiet a bit to check that it was in time with the shooting. Even after this I went back ever so often to check that the sound matches up with the action. The same for the girl walking through the woods and turning pages, I always checked to see it the sound matched the action perfectly as out of time sounds can make a short film seem unprofessional.

The non-diegetic sound I used within the short film was the voice over whispers and the theme music. It took time to decide what music I wanted for my main theme music. Did I want epic battle music? Or something more slow and sorrowful? I couldn't really decide what music I wanted until I had edited the rough order of my film together to see whether the music would be long enough and whether it would suit different parts of the short film. The list below are a few links of the music I was considering for my short film but also sound effects that would help me with the ambience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujh-LYsQKS4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUpLInv2zks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtEkqSif5IQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHFA_wEK_00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D25KtIKxcwA

I went with the last one as it starts off graceful but when the low cellos kick in you can sense a small amount of danger.When the rest of the violins start it gave my chills and that's how I knew this was the right piece for my film as it has grace but also an epic middle section that I could link up to the battle scene that I needed to produce when the sketches and the girl meet the shadow selves for the first time. The other pieces of music were too far into the genre of action, where as this film is more adventure and so I wanted a piece that would create that sensation of adventure within the audience to make them feel and believe that they are actually with the characters.