G324 Bethan Herbert

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

What I found from watching and researching into many short films, mainly from the BBC short film website, is that a short film is in the duration of around three to fifteen minutes, but many of the short films I watched where about three to five minutes long. My Short film, Stranded is in the time span of five minutes long, including the opening titles and end credits. Also from my research I have found that a convention of short films is that their narratives are often surreal and quirky, relating to issues in reality but still managing to be abstract, like in Tom Genes 'Shame', about a teenage girl who doesn't go outside due to her rather over-sized hands.

Shorts also tend to have twist endings, where the ending is not what the audience expected but also still ties in with the quirky storyline, such as in 'Shame' it ends with the girls mother coming back and bring furious that she is out and locks her back into her cage, treating her almost like a monster. In my film, I have tried to not give away the full narrative away before the ending, creating narrative enigma. The audience eventually receives encourage when they find out that Lauren, my main protagonist is actually dead, which is revealed in the last shot, where she is lying dead on the bed and a shot of a headline explaining her death is flashed onto the screen.

An intertextual reference to my film is Alejandro Amen bar’s 2001 film 'The Others', where the main characters are actually dead but they do not realise until the end of the film.

Short films tend to challenge the conventions of Big Blockbuster, big budget films, as shorts are seen as visual art more than product to make money, which most big-budget films are, because of this shorts can get away with much more controversial narratives, such as Debbie Howard's 'Black or white?', which looks at the issue of race in society and people's prejudices. There are many issues raised in my film, many of them relating to my target audience of young adults, such as smoking, drug abuse, self-harming and alcohol abuse, all linking into the theme of self-destruction. I have tried to explore these issues as a way of helping a teenager cope, for instance I tried not to portray self-harming in a negative light, trying to present it as a way of coping. This self-destructive theme is also tied into the narrative of the teen drama, 'Skins', where there are many explicit images of drug-taking and drinking.

Effie from E4's teen drama, 'Skins'.

Also from skins is the character Effie, which I loosely based my main protagonist on. Effie has the same self-destructing qualities that I wanted my character to portray. She does not on well with her family and is known for her rebelling attitude. She drinks, takes drugs and smokes, similar to my protagonist she is not completely happy with her life and uses these substances to help her escape it. She also has a similar look to my character, pale skin, unkempt, dark brown hair and dark clothing.

My character I named Lauren which is an intertextual reference to the 'Goth' character in channel 4's soap, 'Hollyoaks', who is also called Lauren.

My main protagonist is also based on the character 'Elizabeth' in Mark Waters 2005 'Just like Heaven and 'Annie' from the 2008 BBC supernatural series, ''Being Human.'' Even though just like heaven is a romantic comedy and it does not massively fit in with my genre it does however have the main protagonist, Elizabeth portrayed as a ghost. Elizabeth does not realise she isn't alive and cannot communicate with anyone, this is similar to my film as Lauren, my main protagonist can't be seen or heard by anyone.

The Ghost idea was originally taken from the character 'Annie' in the series, ''Being Human''. Annie is a ghost and cannot communicate with most people, again tying in with my main protagonist.

Annie from the BBC Supernatural series 'Being Human.'

I also found from watching shorts that they use voice-overs, like a monologue to give ancourage to the audience such as Tom Geens 'Shame' and David McLaughins 'Butterface'. In these shorts they use the main protagonist for the voice of the voice over, This is what I did also in my film, my central protagonist was the voice over and this helped give clearer ancourage to the audience. The voice over also helped explain why she acted the way she did, why she self-harmed for example and also helped with the dramatic effect.

I dressed my character in stereotypical 'emo' clothing; a red and black stripped tight t-shirt with safety pins on the shoulder, dark skinny jeans and converses. An 'emo' character is stereotypically known to self-harm and to not want to conform to society’s values and ideas; they are seen as outsiders, weird and different. I used an 'emo' character because my target audience are generally teenagers, an 'emo' and the representations of an 'emo' would be recognizable to them, having a teenager dressed in a short skirt and heels would head towards an oppostional reading.

I have also found that because the majority of short films have a very low budget, like the short film 'Press*' by Tim Doubleday which had no budget the titles and credits are often in a simple white font against a black background, for example like in Matthew Murdoch's 'Fence' and Tony O'Reilly's AVOW. Because my film had no budget as it was a school coursework production I used a similar concept. I also used white font on black titles because my whole film I put into black and white to try and reflect the mood of the film so the black and white titles I believe suited the film.

The actress that I used to play my main protagonist has no distinctive, regional accent. Generally when a film has a very distinctive northern accent it can limit your international audience as it is not as easy identifiable. Films like This is England, which was set in the north do not do well at the box office because of this. For example This is England was only screened in one screen in America in it's opening weekend and in British cinemas in it's opening weekend it only took £207, 676 and was only shown on 62 screens.

My short film does not really fit into Todorov's equilibrium theory as there was no real normal state at the beginning as my film is a series of flashbacks, jumping from the past to the present. At the end however you could say there is a new-equilibrium as the narrative enigma has now ended and the audience know why she could not communicate with her family, which you could say was the dis-equilibrium.

Short films are not aired on public cinemas, as they would not make any money compared to what a Hollywood Big-budget film would but a company called Future Shorts which specialise in producing and airing short films have screenings over the country from short films.

For most feature films a teaser campaign is common, so media texts like a teaser poster would be made. However most British films, unless backed my a US distributor like Working Title then most British films go straight to DVD so would not have a cinema market campaign or a article in a magazine, unless the magazine was focused on independent films.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From the very start of my project I have had audience feedback. From right at the start when I was just at the first ideas stage and I had come up with my ghost narrative I took some pictures and made an anamatic. I aired my anamatic to the class and I received some suggestions, one of them being that I should have a shot of a door opening and closing on its own. This, although it is a good idea I did not take up as I thought it would expose the narrative to quickly and not leave enough room for narrative enigma so I chose to not put that idea into my film.

It was extremely helpful for me, that I got to show my film to the people in my class as they are all 17 to 18 year olds, specifically my target audience; young adolescents so I was getting feedback from my target audience.

After filming all the shots I wanted and put together a rough cut which had no audio and no voiceover, the feedback I got was that because of there was no voiceover, at the moment it was not clear what was going on but the transitions and editing worked nicely. I also got a suggestion to brake up a shot in the kitchen where she is standing in the hallway and walks towards the camera to make it look more eerie. This I did and cut it up the scene into three little bits, where she is standing still in the middle of the hallway, with a light behind her with I think works really well as it does look a bit eerie and spooky. I then cut the walking clip in two so it was not as long.

I then put the voiceover onto my film but still with no soundtrack and I got these responses that the drinking shots, the three in the row needed to be snappier. I did leave that shot as it was however, as that was the scene that needed the music and I didn't no yet if cutting it down even more would keep it in time to the music. When I got the music however it worked in time and quite effectively so I only had to cut one clip very slightly.

Other feedback I got from that screening was that the newspaper I made and put in right at the end of the film does not match the newspaper on the table, This I already knew so someone else suggested trimming it down so you could not see the name of the newspaper and turning in black and white to fit in with the rest of the film. This I all did and it worked much better.

Because the alleyway scene was filmed at night time the only source of light I got was from the street light which my actress was standing under. Fortunately it came out fine and in the long shot I think the eeriness of it works very effectively but there is one shot which was too dark so someone suggested making it brighter. This I did not know you could do on Final Cut but I managed to increase the brightness on that particular scene to make it slightly clearer for the audience. The last piece of feedback I received was to put in some diegetic sounds, for example when she is snorting the cocaine. This I did the next day where I recorded my actress breathing heavily into a voice recorder.

Alleyway Shot

I then uploaded my final cut of my film onto Facebook and got these comments; it worked very well in black and white, the audio in the alleyway scene was very effective and the effect I put on the font ties well into the narrative of my film. I also got a comment about the audio at the end, which is not as clear as the others. This I already knew, I re-recorded all my voiceovers on a voice recorder but unfortunately the last section did not come out as planned and has an obvious background noise so it is not as clear.

Audience feedback is essential for any genre of film, epically for British films that want a broader, international appeal, for example Working Title's 2001 film 'Bridget Jones's Diary' nearly failed to get US distribution from Miramax (a subsidiary of NBC Universal) as the American audience failed to find the humour in references to such things as 'turkey curry'.

Being that my target audience was aimed at a young audience, specifically teenagers and young adults because my main protagonist was a 18 year old girl, it was easier for them to follow the preferred reading, than it would say someone in the older generation, as the issues in my film were reflecting a life of a teenager.

The one noticeable flaw in my film is the audio at the end; it has obvious background noise compared with the other audio in my film. I recorded my voice over first just with a DV camcorder but because of all the noticeable background noise I re-recorded it on a portable digital audio recorder. This produced a much clearer and coherent audio but unfortunately the last section did not come out as planned. Because of this I had to cut some aspects of the voice over out at the end so the music starts earlier than planned.

Another flaw that I picked out is in the scene where Lauren is trying to communicate with her sister, Olly. It is the medium-long shot where Olly gets up off the bed and unfortunately her head is cut off from the frame. I did however have another shot where her head was not cut off but she did not turn round for long enough so unfortunately there would have been a continuity error.

Another little problem with my film is that in the alleyway some shots are a little too dark as it was shot in the dark and the only source of light was the street light but fortunately I felt that in some aspects it helped create an eerie, spooky effect but perhaps if I were to re-take those shots I would use a flash light.
What I think works very effectively however in that particular scene is how the audio is arranged to make it seem that she is high on drugs and is hallucinating.

Towards the end of the film, where Lauren sees that newspaper, she picks it up, this breaks verisimilitude as she wouldn't be able to pick up a newspaper as she is dead but also it would be confusing to her family as all they would see is a floating newspaper.

Also at the end of the drinking scene the music ends abruptly, this I actually did on purpose to signify that that was the end of a flashback and it is now back into the present. The music does stop quite abruptly though, so maybe a little fade out was needed to make the transition smoother.
Another minor point is that there is a little interference in the music but sometimes this cannot be helped when recorded sound, especially when you don't have advanced equipment.

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

To start off my research I mainly used the BBC short film website to watch short films as they had many on offer. They put films into groups such as, Duration, Region, Category, Views, it was fairly easy to find you way around the site and I watched the majority of the short films I researched on there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork

Another website I used when first researching short films was the FutureShorts website which had links to their Facebook site and also had information about the company and their festivals that they hold. http://www.futureshorts.com/

http://www.imdb.com/ is a website I frequently use, epically in the research and evaluation stages as it contains box office and business information which is very useful when your comparing independent films with big blockbusters ones. It also gives you all the production and distribution companies that worked on a film and also the directors and actors.

When I first came up with my original idea I used Canon A620 camera to take shots for my anamatic. I then used Final Cur Express 4 for the first time to upload and make my anamatic. At first I found it quite challenging to place the text on the still images as Final Cut is so much more advanced than imovie 06, you were able to position the text so accurately that at first I struggled with it. But I did manage to place my images in the right order, so that I could get feedback on my idea.

I used Blogger again for my A2 coursework, just like I did for my AS coursework but this time I was able to change the settings, to the new advanced editor where they had updated a forward and back tool, had added more sized fonts and also abled you to moved around your pictures more freely. But unusually the new blogger didn’t allow you to upload video clips so to upload my film I had to revert back to the old blogger settings. I post everything I research, plan and complete on my blog.

I also use the site http://www.scridb.com/ to upload my storyboards, power points, screenplay and production schedules that I can then use the embedded code to import onto my blog. The site http://www.youtube.com/ I used to get video embed code so I can import it onto my blog so you could watch the videos straight off my blog.
My teaser poster I completed at home and at home I have a different version of Photoshop than at school. At home I completed my teaser poster on Adobe Photoshop elements. I uploaded my image that I took and then duplicated all the layers which then abled me to decrease the opacity so it could give the image a transparent, ghost-like quality.

Again I did my Movie Poster at home as well, using the same settings but always converting the image to JPEG quality so it would upload onto my blog.
I also used my home HP scanner to scan y storyboards in so I could upload them onto my blog.

I filmed all my shots on a DV camcorder, a Canon digital video camcorder MD101 which we used I used for my AS coursework. These camcorders are very easy to use, as I had already used it before but its settings are not so advanced so it is easy to film with. All I had to do was insert a Digital Video tape into the camera, making sure the DV tape is rewound correctly so I did not film over any footage I hadn't uploaded. I also used a white piece of paper and put it in front of the camera before I shot anything to correct the white balance. The zoom I did use this time, unlike in my AS production. What I found is that you have to slightly use the zoom tool, very softly and try and keep your finger still or else the shot will then appear jerky.

For one particular scene I rented out a boom mic which allows you to record footage with little background noise. What I found was the background noise came from the camera itself, so when you connected the boom mic into the camera, the background noise was much less apparent. For example in this particular shot, which I had to re-film due to background noise from the camera.

Like my anamatic I used Final Cut Express 4 to edit my film. At first I was quite anxious about using it as when producing my anamatic I found it quite difficult but once I got the familiar with the cut tool, I found it reasonably easy to edit. I did however upload all the footage onto imovie 06 first as I found it easier just to drag my clips onto final cut. I did the same with my audio; I just dragged it from imovie to Final Cut. I found it just as easy to edit my audio, as my video, it was the exact same process. Final Cut also allows you to drag and insert clips where you want them, with a transition or without. It also lets your overwrite that clip or use both clips at the same time. As unlike imovie where you could only have one clip, final cut allowed you to use 99 clips at the same time.

Because Final Cut is much more advanced that imovie I was able to crop and rotate my clips, such as the newspaper clip, with I cropped and rotated it. This you are not able to achieve on imovie as it is much more basic software compared with Final Cut. You also on Final Cut have a greater range of transitions and you can be much more precise and accurate with your trimming and editing.

I then used the application 'Live Type' which allowed me to add effects onto my titles, so I added a 'static' affect which gave my font a ghost-like quality, fitting into the narrative of my film. I could aso alter the opactity, the colour and the size of the font. I then imported that into Final Cut and dragged and inserted it where I wanted it.

To record my voice over I used a portable digital audio recorder which creates mp3 files which are ideal for pod casts and re-recording dialogue for over-dubbing or in my case using it to record a voice over. It was fairly simple to use but what I found is that if you placed the microphone to far away from the person's mouth when speaking, is that you will get too much background noise as I found out when importing it onto my Mac. This is why my last bit of audio in my film is not as clear as the others. The audio recorder, unlike using a DV camcorder, it allows you to record audio with limited, or any background noise when used correctly.

When I had finished my final edit of my film I imported it onto iDVD 06 to burn my film onto a disc. iDVD allows you to pick a theme so that the menu at the start can fit into the genre of your film. It is also easy to burn, you simply import the file you want and then press the button on the button of the screen. It does take some time to burn however, epically since my film was five minutes long.

Once I had finished all this I uploaded my final edit onto the socializing network site, Facebook to receive more audience feedback.

I am very pleased with my finished result, I think the narrative is easily understandable to my target audience, without giving away the twist at the end. Like any product you create there is always something you would do differently if you were to do it again. Personally, I hope I achieved to address slightly contraversial but hard-hitting truths in a way that would help people understand the pressure and lifestyle choices of a teenager.