3. Research We looked at 15 short films. Mainly on the virgin shorts website and youtube. Came up with the idea when looking at the subject of stereotyping, and seeing is believing. We used these two subjects and put them into a brain storming session using a spider diagram, from this we came up with a storyline. We designed a questionnaire for members of the public to see what type of film they would be interested in, from this we gained a knowledge of what type of audience our film would target We researched 15 posters and film reviews to start developing ideas for our own poster and film review. We found both of these items over the internet and used a couple of posters in particular as a template for our own poster.
4. How research impacted on planning. From watching the short films we watched we discovered that the films that were the most successful were the films which had a simple storyline. We also found that short films which tried to use a lot of special effects (explosions etc.) did not work and felt that the directors were almost trying to cram too much into a short film which was not a good viewing experience. We were influenced by the classic childrens tale “The boy who cried wolf”. From this we decided to have a fantasy type creature that only the main character has seen. We were also influenced by the film Control as it is filmed in black and white. From watching this film we decided we want to film our film in black and white also as it creates a type of mystery to the film and adds a sense of vintage.
5. Planning and issues. We originally planned to film two more actors rather than colin in the film as we thought this would give the audience a better understanding of the plot and colins character. Although we originally planned to do this once we go to the later stage of filming we found it would be logistically quite hard to film the other two people as one of them for example would have to be filmed in a pub which would cause difficulties for us filming. Although after putting the final piece together we were happy that we didn’t film the two actresses as we thought it would possibly divert attention away from colin. We originally started to edit on the programme windows movie maker but found the software to be limited, so we therefore changed half way through editing and started to edit on apples imovie which we found easier to use and it also had a wider variety of effects.
6. How we used technology in our project. All the coursework we did we submitted onto a blog which gave us easier management and better presentation of our coursework. We also used to programmeslideshare to upload our power point slideshows onto our blog. We decided to film our poster review and our evaluation, we found this a lot easier than typing it out and enjoyed doing it more as we found it more creative and gave us a better understanding of the material we were reviewing. We used editing software to edit our film, poster review and our evaluation We also found the actor for our film (Gareth Jones) using the internet by searching for amateur dramatic associations, through this we were able to email gareth to discuss film times etc. We also used a digital camera to take pictures of our potential set set-ups and for a location recce.
7. Success of film. Overall we found the film to be a success, we concluded this through questionnaires and asking people what the thought of the film after we had shown it to them. There were a couple of things that we picked up upon from the audience feedback. One of these was that some people thought the film should have been longer. Another point the audience made was the fact that on a couple of occasion's the editing lapses in quality a bit. Apart from that both of us are overly happy about the outcome of the film.
