2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Claude Levi Strauss Minority Report
3. Gone ‘Gone’ for me both uses, develops and challenged the forms and conventions of real media products as to begin with I started by looking at various other short films and extracts from films in my planning and research which allowed me to bring together and create my own narrative. To this I was able to apply Todorov’s narrative theory, Levi-Strauss binary oppositions, Propp’s character theory, etc. which allowed me to identify that I was creating something along the lines of other films and narratives. However, by applying these narrative theories it also allowed me to see how I was challenging other conventional media products, as for example some of the narrative theories/ structures like Todorov’s were twisted and toyed with. To break this down a little I saw that my film had a equilibrium at the beginning when they are a happy couple then a disequilibrium later on when she sees him missing. However it begins to challenge Todorov’s theory when I left the film at a cliff hanger at the end. This showing that I have challenged however developed and used ideas from conventional media products in my work. In my planning and research I focused quite a bit on Minority report as one of the films which inspired me helping me to develop a style for my film. For example, I liked the narrative idea present in the opening of the film as it plays with time considerably, by showing us what is going to happen before it happens allowing them to predict events which are going to happen in the future. I used and developed this convention from the opening minority report in my media product as I wanted to show the audience two different versions of what happened as I think it not only makes my text more postmodern in terms of its approach. The cold blue lighting at times also I felt separate what was reality and what was real life. In my media product I have also tried to use this at times but to make the atmosphere feel cold. At the beginning the dark warm lighting helps radiate the love and emotion I was trying to make the audience feel however the cold blue lighting I wanted the audiences to feel unsettled as Clare is feeling in the film due to James going missing.
4. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Film Review Double Page Spread Gone Film Poster
5. Gone I think that the overall effectiveness is very good as we are able to see the strong links with the idea of time being an incredibly important part of my narrative of my film. For example my poster has faint timings spread across it making it evident that this will be an important idea focused upon within the film. On my poster you are also able to see the water which links to the fact that she finds him dead in her dream down by the shallows/ river. The chest of drawers with the picture frame and the clock on it I have used to reveal a hidden message to show the relationship between love, couples and time, as in ‘Gone’ we are able to see time come between reality and their relationship. The tagline ‘This winter…the dream is over’ I feel is particularly effective as again it reveals more about the narrative to us however doesn’t give too much away. This meaning that when combined with the main product we were able to see a clear transparent link to the film and the poster which promoted it to the audience. When producing my double page spread my aim was to try and take a different style/ stance in relation to my poster as I wanted it to seem part of the overall house style/ typography however offer something which broke and challenged some of the typical conventions of a film review article. I wanted the article to be positive and at the same time seem innovative and modern as I have tried to do with my film. For example, when carrying out the production of my film review page, I was asked and questioned many times by friends and fellow students about whether the double page spread looked right or if the style worked. From my point of view this was kind of a good thing as I wanted people to be slightly confused by it as it means that people clearly find it interesting, which from a marketing point of view is the whole point of a film review, to make people read about the film and try and make them want to know more about the film. By making my article unusual, it helps to see that when put alongside my production you can see that they effectively combine together.
7. Gone My audience feedback has been a critical tool which has been vital to the success of my film as without the criticisms from showing my numerous drafts to others in class and my friends, it has allowed me to spot areas I had not noticed and try and make them more fluid and improve the continuity throughout my film. One of the values which were particularly useful was people s honesty. For example if something was hard to understand, confusing, untidy, people felt free to say what they thought. By doing this it also allowed me to recognise both the preferred and oppositional reading of my text. I have learned that allowing others to address your work and make both positive and negative comments on it, not only allows you to feel more confident about your production but also allows you to improve your skills. Whether it is directorial, camera, sound, research, editing, etc. In my planning and research my target audience research allowed me to begin shaping and putting together my ideas for my film in order to ensure my film had a target market which I discovered to be mature teenager (15-21 years old). Many of the people who I got to watch my film and gave feedback were within this age range making it easier for me to ensure that my production had the correct mode of address and it was also interesting to notice Gauntlet's Pick ‘n’ Mix theory coming into action as it was interesting to see which areas people preferred and felt that they could relate to. One student which watched my short film said that the last minute of my production where she is running to where she found him dead in the dream was particularly intense and made them nervous inside. This shows that through showing my film to people allowed me to understand the strong areas which people could decode and make some sort of personal connection with the film. With this kind of response from people allowed me to see that perhaps maybe the beginning or the middle of the film weren't as strong, meaning that I could ask them the areas they didn’t get much emotion from so that I could try and encode this into the film itself.
8. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
9. Gone New media Technology – Dan Gillmor ‘Citizen Journalism’ – in the form of blog and Web 2.0 they enable people to participate and add to the day to day forms of the media. Research and planning In the R&P stages I decided to use YouTube as one of my main forms of new media. This was because I wanted to get a broad range of short films into my mind to establish some of the typical conventions which would help me to develop my creativity and inspire me to create my own narrative. In my R&P I textually analysed some short films from YouTube, such as 12:12 by James Cathey Films, this helped me get an idea as to my target audience as the actors and horror genre were appealing to that of which I wanted my film to appeal to. Production In the production stages I decided to take a short clip from my first draft of my production and upload it onto my YouTube channel as a way of allowing people to view it and to make comments. Unfortunately however it only received 6 views showing a limitation of using YouTube as a way of getting my film to consumers. But never the less I also used Blogger as a basis for allowing people to track my progress throughout the production. Blogger allowed me to upload images from days of shooting, clips and write detailed comments about where my production was heading and improvements I was taking in my stride. Evaluation Blogger has been a critical part of my evaluation stage as it has allowed me to look back over the past 6 months or so and re-read and re-address/ evaluate some of the happenings which have acted both in my favor and less so. For example I uploaded all of my planning and research onto my blog using slide share, a presentation conversion website so people could view it. It could been seen as a collective portfolio which links to my year 12 blog also bringing together all the practical work I have done over the past two years making its easier for me to look at the strengths and weaknesses of my final productions. Overall Without the use of new media technologies like the internet it would have meant that I would have had to have used more primary research techniques which are incredibly time consuming.
