The Final Video :)

Evaluation - Media Technologies

Youtube was perfect for researching, it helped us to find examples of short films, as well as drug scenes that we could take inspiration from. As the project was a huge challenge for us, and no one else in our class had taken the same efforts, we didn't really have anyone to turn to to ask for ideas, or how we should do things. This was where YouTube came in, it helped us to see exactly how it should be done. If it wasn't for Youtube, I doubt we would have had half of the research that we have now, and the short film wouldn't look anywhere near as professional as it does.. So thanks YouTube!

"DepicT! challenges filmmakers on any budget from anywhere in the world to show their stuff in just a minute and a half. We want your tiny films – submit your super shorts online and be in with a chance of winning priceless industry exposure and exclusive prizes."

There are literally hundreds of films on Depict that anyone can see, it was another great resource for our research, and was in fact one of the main suppliers for previous product research. Although these short films are only 90 seconds long they all had a fantastic story, and we as a group were amazed that they could fit so much into 90 seconds. So Depict was another website that helped us throughout this project. 

Web 2.0 is just a fantastic thing, and I believe that this project would have gone no where if it wasn't for it. It's given us everything we need, millions and millions videos that we can gain inspiration from, feedback options so that we can easily leave and recieve feedback, and most importantly, blogger,  a place to store everything!! Where would we be without it?!

We were lucky enough to have Adobe Premier Pro installed on some computers at our college. It's definately one of the easiest video editing programs to use out there. And if you're familiar with Photoshop, well it's even easier! This is how easy it is.... 

(Click on image to enlarge)

Blogger has made all of our lives easier. Originally everyone would have had to have used power point.. and just jazzed it up a little bit. But blogs make research and advertising your product way more fun, and much more simple. It also means that we can connect our blogs together, they're so easily accessible it means that we can share our work, and make sure that we are all on the same path, rather than having to open up a massive power point document we can just open a web page :)
It also means there is hardly any chance of all of our work being deleted, the web can store our work for hundreds and hundreds of years, whereas if we run out of memory on our computers... our power points may have to be deleted, meaning we won't ever be able to look back on our work again.
Blogger makes our work seem more professional, the layout we use can match the same themes that we have used across the whole project. It also has the amazing Gadget feature which means we can link our Flickr, and our Twitter to our blog and even create polls to gain audience feedback.


These two beauties are the equipment that we had available to use. With new technologies being designed and released so quickly in these modern times, it's so easy to get hold of a DSLR or MINI DV CAM. They give us the quality that we need to make a amateur project look professional, at a fraction of the price.

Overall we're lucky to live in such an advanced age, where all of this technology and all of these resources are literally at our fingertips!

Evaluation - Combination of our ancillary products

Both the poster and review fit well together, and work well to help us attract for viewers for the film. They both have very similar themes. A simple font, chosen to stand out and attract attention. A good colour scheme, the use of black and white in both the poster and review, however the use of red in the review is used to attract more attention, and show the quotes. We were unable to use red in the poster as it did not fit in with the colours of the images. However despite that fact, it is obvious that the poster and film review are both for the same short film. They definitely work wonders in advertising the film, both using quotes to show feedback, and although the film has not won any awards (YET!!) the poster does include 2010 awards, which will further attract viewers.

 It is clear that we took a lot of time in terms of research for both the poster and review, and we all had an idea of how we wanted them both to look, and I think the ancillary tasks portray our ideas extremely well. The main inspiration came from the film poster for London to Brighton, and the review for Kidulthood from an online website.
We took great inspiration from the use of clips from the film in the posters, so we decided whilst filming to take out a camera, we used both a Canon 400D and a Pentax DSLR to capture images whilst we were filming so that none of the photographs seemed posed, they worked really well for the poster. I then edited them using Photoshop CS3, I simply changed the colours slightly and used the smudge tool to make an interesting and rough effect on the edges of the photos. Although we wanted the review to be similar to the review of kidulthood, however to differentiate it, we used the effect that I created in Photoshop, and then put them in a film strip sort of thing, which was really effective, although it was still pretty simple. We're really pleased with the overall outcome :) 

Evaluation - Audience Feedback Results

In order to gain audience feedback, I have used a range of different methods! All useful in their own ways. Click the images, they will take you too our pages. :) 

The facebook page has helped us amazingly in terms of advertising. I have been using my own personal  Facebook to advertise Film Secrets page, and our Youtube, which in turn gave us at least 60views for each version of the film! Although we actually only have  25 members in the group, its great that we've managed to spread the word so that we could have 60views!
I also used my own personal facebook to interview a few friends about, asking them which ending they prefer. Here is just one example :

"

Eamon

watched it

the first ending is more uncomfortable

00:50Me

which ones the first ending?

00:51Eamon

i liked the bit where shes in the toilet and theres paper all on the wall

the more graphic ending

number 1

00:51Me

her standing over herself or it ending on the 'blood' dripping out?

00:52Eamon

blood dripping out

ewww"

Youtube has also been fantastic for advertising. And has helped us to choose a final version :)
Sadly we have only received one comment, but this may be due to the fact that only members of Youtube can actually comment on our video, therefore making it a bit more difficult for just anyone to make comments.

I personally used YouTube to comment on another A level student's work, and he in turn left us feedback.

"

twmediaproject (3 days ago) Remove | Block User | Spam Hey thanks, yeah it's ages - there are two and they total up to about 2 hours long! Feel sorry for the poor person who's got to listen to it all. Love you're work, will you be uploading a final, final piece or is that it - love the toilet scene, how many pieces of paper were there?"

Yes, even blogger has been great for audience feedback :) It has a fantastic comment option, which can be used by anyone and on any post that we make (even better, it's up to us if we have the comment option or not! )
here are a few of the comments :)

" Deanna said...

Did you understand the full storyline?

Yes
No

Do you think the use of visual effects were effective?

Yes
No

Do you think the time is filled well?

Yes
No

What did you understand about the film?
The girl obviously came from a broken home and was following in her mother's footsteps through drugs and drinking. ):

What do you think we could improve about the film?
Though it's a convention of the genre, maybe make the plot a little bit more obvious so it has wider appeal :) I personally got it but I can see how some people could be confused by it a bittttt <3"

"Andy said...
Love the poster ideas, look really realistic, great research."

ACTUAL RESULTS!

From talking to people, counting the amount of views and the odd comment on youtube, the facebook page & comments on our blogs. It's quite obvious that people definitely prefer version 2.

And from the results from our poll, right here on blogger! 90% of you thought that our short film would be watched for social realism! 

well done, you were correct! :) 

Evaluation - Codes and conventions

Codes & Conventions : 

- there are usually only a few characters 

- the plot tends to be based around one main character

- there is usually always a twist / unexpected happening 

- short films are usually based around a true to life story

- a huge variation of interesting angles and shot types 

- voice overs are a popular method of sounds in short films

- there doesn't tend to be much dialogue in short films

- short films usually last between 1- 10 minutes

- short films don't tend to use titles, and if they do, they're usually very simple

- short films tend to have a very low budget

How have we followed the codes and conventions? 

We have created a short film that lasts about 5minutes, which is within the typical time. The plot is based round one main character, and the whole film only includes a few characters, Carly, her mum & some extras (teacher & girls ). 

We decided against using powerful music, and went a long with the popular choice of using voice overs. We definitely feel like this was much more effective, and it was a great way to help the audience understand the short film a lot easier. 

From the beginning of the film, the audience know that Carly is a troubled teenager, who is finding life difficult, the twist that short films usually have is the fact that Carly is a drug user, this should have come as a shock to the audience, and hopefully kept them interested. This is done with the use of a voice over, clearly an argument between Carly and her mother. 

We planned our story boards extremely well, it took us a long time to get it to where they were, and even then whilst we were filming we changed, and developed the shots and angles to make them even more interesting. And therefore we have definitely kept to the conventions of using a variation of shots & angles.
Examples :

Our editing developed, followed and challenged the codes and conventions of a short film. Typically short films will use quick cuts or fades to black, keeping the transitions of clips very simple, but effective, we copied this idea, as it helped to keep up the pace, or slow it down a little bit at other times. However in terms of the other aesthetics we definitely developed the conventions, making sure that our editing
completely matched the atmosphere, and mood of the scene.

Notice in this scene, how there is very little colour, keeping the scene looking dull, and miserable, thus matching Carlys mood. 

And here, in the last scene, this shot is the most desaturated of them all, it shows how it has all come to and end. Carly is looking down upon herself, and therefore the lack of colour connotes sadness, and the feeling of emptiness. All of our editing has been extremely well thought out, and therefore is very effective. 

In terms of a stereotypical short film, I think we did really well. Short films usually tackle difficult subjects, such as drug and alcohol abuse, just as we did. Although it was an extremely difficult challenge, I think that we  took control, and everything came out well.

Final Poster & Review

Double endings?

We have two different endings, and we need you to choose :)

Audience Feedback

Below are the questions we are going to ask the audience, after they've finished watching our film. From this we will be able to tell whether our film was easily understood.


Audience Feedback

Links to other pages :)

https://twitter.com/filmsecretmedia

https://flickr.com/filmsecret

https://youtube.com/filmsecret

Update on music choices

We've decided that although music may have been a great way to create a more dramatic atmosphere, however due to the fact we have now decided to use dialogue, we feel that any music we use will not be as effective as it may have previously been.
The dialogue that we have now decided to use is :
- a voice over of the Carly and mother arguing
- a conversation between Carly and her teacher
- Bullies abusing Carly

This is a post of a fellow team members, we all worked together to do some detailed analysis of a drug scene.

Our film includes a scene in which it shows explicit drug taking, this is a very significant event in our film in order for it to work as this is the main event in our film.

I have research into some other films which contain scenes of drug taking, I have done this as I want to make the film look as realistic as possible.

We have chosen to use the drug Heroine as we feel this is the drug that is recognisable to most people. People know that the drug heroine is a highly addicted drug and when portrayed in other media texts, this convention of the drug is always portrayed in this way.

However another thing we had to take in to consideration when showing explicit scenes of taking this drug is the rating of our film, as we feel that this is very necessary to our film and that we have to include it we have taken the decisions that the guidance rating for our film will now be rated 18.

Pulp Fiction

I have chosen to analysis the scene from pulp fiction where John Travolta's character takes heroine . I have chosen this scene as this is the drug our character Carly uses.

The screen shot above show the main part of the process john travoltas charter goes through to prepare himself and the drugs. I think that it is important that we include this process in the film, as it shows the lengths people go to in order to get there next fix.

I like the idea of showing the process of preparing the drugs as it will make the film seem more realistic rather than if we showed Carly just getting the drug's and injecting them straight away.

Therefore we have decided to use the process of preparing the drugs shown in pulp fiction in our short film too but through our interpretation.

The general sequences goes :

1. prepare the needle - 2. lighter -3. heat the drugs on the spoon. 4. inject

We have used this sequence in our film however we have added an extra stage in which after step 3 - heating the drugs on the spoon,we show the main character Carly flicking the syringe as this shows the transferal of the liquid form of the drug from the spoon to the syringe, which we wanted to highlight to the audience in order to educate them that the drug comes in different forms.

However I feel that Pulp Fiction Glamorizes taking Heroine and that this isn't a true representation of someone who would be addicted to this specific drug. I did not like that the scene kept switching from the scene showing him taking drugs to him driving a car.

This is not a good representation as if you had taking heroine and was on a high from it you would be unable to co-ordinate driving a car, therefore I don't feel that the makers of pulp fiction got this correct and it is not a true representation of a drug addict.

Therefore our film is going to focus on the more realistic darker side of the aftermath of taking Heroine.

And not show it as being as glamorous and desirable as it is shown in pulp fiction.

Real life stories of a heroine addict.

Story Boards

Inspiration/ Sample Music

Updates

- Sorry that Film Secret haven't posted a blog in a while.. in fact quite a long time. We've been extremely busy, and have had to make a lot of big changes.
 
One piece of great news is that we have come up with a name for the short film! It is now called, "Final Notice" and we are now well on our way to completing it. If you're lucky we may even put a sneak preview up!

However as I said, there have been a lot of changes.One major change is the story line, we now no longer use the postcards as a way of showing Carlys secrets, and have taken away the idea that a boy was her reason for going down the wrong path.

The story now goes as follows,

- Carlys parents split up, this is shown by a shots of a slightly open door, with the view of a mans feet. We will be using a voice over to show that her parents are arguing, the father implies the mother is useless, an alcoholic etc etc, Carly can hear all of this, eventually she runs out of her bedroom and makes her way to school.At school she is handed her results from an essay, and the results are not good. Her teacher says something to her, that implies there is no point in her being at college, she storms out of the room. Whilst this is going on Carly's mum is at home, drinking and smoking away her sorrows, we match this with shots of carly drinking outside, alone. This is the first shot that we use to imply that Carly is going down the same route as her Mum, the previous scenes all explain why Carly feels like she does need to turn to drugs and alcohol. She's alone, feeling like she needs to get away from it all, so she sees the drugs and alcohol as her way out. Knowing full well that her Mum has a stash of drugs Carly returns home, tipping her mums room upside down whilst she lays passed out on the sofa, Carly finds drugs in her draw and makes her way to a unused public toilet. We get the impression that this isn't the first time that Carly has done this, as she knows exactly where to go and what to do, she is already prepared with a belt and knows that the toilet is rarely used. She also struggles to find a vein, again implying this really isn't her first time at injecting heroine. Carly continues throughout the struggle of finding the vein, but with her drunken and frustrated state this doesnt really help, however she is eventually successfull, and injects the heroine into her veins. Something goes wrong and she ends up hallicinating, imagining that her mother and friends are surrounding her, talking her out of it, telling her how disappointed they are etc etc. She then wakes up alone, and the film ends.