Final film

I am very happy with our film as a whole, and feel that it has managed to convey all the aspects of domestic abuse that we formally wished to illustrate.

Todays sound recording for final part of our film

Today we recorded our voice overs as part of additional sound for our film. As well as this, we also decided that the previous piece of music was not fitting enough to recreate a music box, and therefore decided to record a different piece of music to layer over our film. We used a different child who was not in the film to record the sound as she was older and could understand the context of what we wanted her to say, which gave us a more emotional and hard hitting voice. However, she was young enough to sound like a young innocent child.

Ideologies and representation


Common ideologys say that a family would be a mother, father and children as a unit- our product shows this traditional family but with untraditional morals and values. The way in which we challenge the 'happy family' idea but by conforming to the stereotype of male against female shows a negative representation of the modern female but as our film progresses the female fights back to show how it is possible.

Feedback on Evaluation

Q4 - need to comment on media technologies and the impact they have had.

Q3- what did i find out and change as a result of audience feedback- summarise it as well as adding more information about the film and the review

We needed our sound to be appropriate and correspond to the imagery we had created. So instead of having a basic sound track we toyed with the idea of a narrative script. Bella’s voice, the voice of a child would be much more emotive and could really trigger that reaction needed for a sensitive campaign.

By Bella telling her story through the eyes of a child it again adds another dimension to our film and becomes even more touching.

At the end I believed that it was absolutely necessary to have a positive resolution. Now in the end scene we see Eve smile and laugh for the first time. We felt that the title silenced with the slogan who will have the last word needed to be a question that Eve could answer on behalf of abused woman, and say she will not be silenced and she will have the last word.    

The script-

Bella: “Once upon a time there was a family, we played hide and seek. But he would always find us, but mummy was always there. She kept daddy away and always made things fun. She loves me more than anything, she always kept me safe. But when daddy shouts, mummy's quiet, no one keeps her safe”

Throughout the shots of Bruce and I arguing we will have whispers of Bella saying 'Stop it daddy' 'leave mummy alone'.

Bella: “Until mummy got brave, he left us alone, the shouting stopped. The scars faded, we held our heads high. Mummy smiles now.”

As the last scene fades to black there will be a voice over from Eve saying “I will have the last word, I will not be silenced”

Teacher feedback

>Change the poster as to wording and text, consider what it connotes -Consider ideology's and representation within our product

>Change the size of the review image

Re- filming

As we needed to re-soot our ending for our film, yesterday we re-shot the second half which will hopefully conclude our film. We filmed our female protagonist's face, with her having minimal make-up on and stripped back hair to connote simplicity, vulnerability and herself as the character being stripped back.

Evaluation Q4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Q3- What have you learned form your audience feedback?

Throughout my project, i have constantly asked the public for feedback on our film, ancillary texts and what certain colours provoke. As well as this, i constantly sought to find out if our titles, products and ideas were acceptable for the topic we wished to showcase. The feedback good or bad, really helped to refine our ideas and critique our own work form a different perspective. This system of using social networking sits, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also allowed us to take in suggestions on how to improve our ideas, as well as letting us know which aspects our audience enjoyed and liked, which was really helpful for my group in understanding if we were on the right path.





Facebook

Facebook was our main source of feedback and we used this social network right from the beginning of our project, to ensure that we were fully grasping the concept of what we wished to achieve. We uploaded questions, new pieces of footage, music, posters and a review for our audience to look at and comment, the good thing about this being was that we managed to gain feedback from a variety of people within different age groups, making it comforting to know that a variety of people had centred their commentary around the same aspects as one another, which made it evident that that aspect was either good, or needed improving. Facebook overall was our most successful Social Networking Site for feedback as it allowed us to do everything technical that Twitter and Instagram did, but in a different formate, which i found much easier, finding also, that feedback was quicker and more insightful.























Although we got good feedback from the music itself (not the recording) the feedback on the recording, made us want to change the music entirely, whilst we were recording the same piece of music, we started to experiment with different types of tones and sounds which lead us to the music we now have within the final film. Although initially changing the piece of music was not part of our idea, due to that information from audience feedback, is the reason why we eventually changed, and in my opinions, and others by our recent feedback of our final film, improved the sound. 


We also used Facebook to post our final poster which got great reviews, making my group happy with the poster that we had finally produced. Even though we got some constructive criticism, we decided to stick to the final lay out of our poster, as we felt that the tagline was just as important as the title in this domestic abuse short film.

Our Film drafts and final film

This is some feedback from our final film

For our final film it seems that there is minor criticism, however, the overall feedback was positive and i feel that my group has done a sufficient job in refining our film to make it what it is today. We have managed to progress and develop through our audience feedback, and by closely listening to what they have to say, have now managed to satisfy our audience in creating a  polished final piece. However feedback from previous Facebook posts about our film drafts did contain some constructive criticism which we successfully managed to change. 

Shots that were brief and in-concise were scrapped to make the footage solely focus on a particular point of interest. Although we kept the symbolism of the balloon, we felt that shots such as the ones to the right did nothing that benefited towards our topic. The more edits shown to the audience, the better the feedback was. It became apparent that the more condense and precise our footage was, made it easier for the audience to follow and understand without going on a tangent. 




Adding narration within the film, also made the audience more involved with what was happening. The tracking shot of taking the audience into the story with the narration alongside, help our audience to feel more of an emotional connection. Members of the public exclaiming ' i felt helpless' . This was exactly the response we wanted and was created by taking the audience back out of the story with a panning out shot, which reminds them that they are watching a campaign. 

This is how we made these symbolic shots valuable

Feedback on review pages 


Old review page

Feedback from my teacher, told me that the size of the photo on this review was too small and needed enlarging. This was useful feedback, which i decided to take into consideration, pursuing me to change the sizing so that the image was larger and more prominent. This also made the review more aesthetically pleasing, and also made the review more striking as it had a larger picture, which would catch the readers attention. 

                                                                                  

Feedback on the written content was also good, some saying it was 'well written' and an 'interesting read' when talking to my peers and teachers. So i felt that the only thing necessary to change was the image.







Twitter

Myself and my group members used twitter to document filming dates and ask opinions on our posters by uploading photos of our current poster or decisions that we had made about the poster. Twitter was used in a different way to Facebook for some aspects. Facebook posts, could be seen by viewers who were already friends with us, however, with twitter, random members of the public can choose to follow your posts and updates, which allowed the feedback given to be more honest and opinionated, instead of just compliments which we seemed to get from Facebook. However, unlike Facebook, Twitter seemed to have its faults. We found it difficult to initially see the posts of the photos and video without clicking on it, which meant that we could not entice our audience to see what we had produced without firstly making them click on the link, where as with Facebook, the Videos and posters were already displayed on the screen, which allowed our product to interest our audience to see what it was about and therefore, for the majority of the time, lead to them commenting feedback.

Firstly before asking for feedback on our products and film, we thought it would be interesting to initially used Twitter for research purposes to ask what the colour of red meant to them.

 

Feedback thankfully gave us the information that we were looking for as some of them said that the colour red connoted 'Danger' and ' Pain' which is what we wanted to associate the colour with. This lead to us changing the initial costume to suit the new colour and its connotations. This colour was again picked up within our final film when shows for feedback.

Teacher Feedback

As well as using Social Networking Sites, my group also turned to our Media Teacher for feedback about what we were doing and the progress we made. The good aspects of this being was that we got feedback from a professional in this area, which really helped us develop our understanding on how we wanted our final film and ancillary texts to look like, so that they were at a professional standard. By asking our teacher, it also meant that we could get feedback there and then and did not have to wait, as sometimes when we asked on the online websites, they took some time to reply. We acted on many suggestions which our teacher had.


What also lead us to a change in costume, was our teacher's feedback.

She suggested reflecting over the current characters costume and chosen characters appearance. This reflection over our work, made us realise that we were being too generic with our simple, insignificant costumes as they were not challenging enough. After some discussion, we decided to change the overall appearance of our protagonist as that would be the best possible option to make our film more symbolic in terms of its didactic message.

These were our old costumes

These are our new costumes and overall apearance.

Instagram


This phone app, was incredibly good at getting feedback on photos as Instagram is a photo sharing website. However, this meant that we could only upload photos or screenshots of questions we wanted answered, which made it extremely difficult to get quick and easy feedback, as it was hard for our audience to create a full response to the questions asked due to limited text space. Due to this problem, we decided to use Instagram mainly to showcase our recent sample posters to gain feedback, which would help to decide on our final poster.

 The final poster was influenced by this comment about it being simple. We took this poster for inspiration towards our final poster, as it seemed that they liked the colour of black and white which was different from the other poster samples.

The blending of the images of our child and protagonist for our final poster was decided by feedback from this poster, as a member of our audience commented about how the child's face is 'haunting' which is exactly what we wanted her to be within the poster and film, as she is a constant reminder to our audience that this topic is unacceptable as she looks into the eyes of our audience.



Our final poster as you can see has been influenced by this feedback from Instagram. The child remains looking into the eyes of our audience and we decided to do the whole image in black and white, as well as merging two images together to create a more interesting composition.

Conclusion


Having audience feedback from different types of people, was really beneficial towards our ancillary product and final film, as it made myself critique my own work from a different view point, exposing myself to different interpretations that could be used within my film, review and poster. It made me add and take away some aspects from our film and poster, allowing our audience to fully understand the concept of what our poster is trying to represent. By listening to my feedback, it ensured that our own ideas and the ones from feedback were intertwined within the project as a whole, so that the texts became more relatable and understandable for our target audience.



The things we changed


> The music and its recording
> The poster colour and positioning from its original state
>The costumes within the film
> The title
>Changing the size of the image in the review
>Excluding shots that snatched our audiences attention away from the situation in hand
>condensing narrative
> Having a voice over instead of just music, so that it was that bit more accessible for those who might not grasp the films purpose.



The biggest change to our production being the ending, where it completely comes away from the 'story' and shows the triumph of our protagonist. This ending was suggested by our teacher, so that the audience can fully establish that it is a campaign. This ending presents the 'light at the end of the tunnel' for those out there who desire freedom and liberation.

Evaluation Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As well as making sure that our products worked collectively, i also had to ensure that they followed the conventions of their typical products. However, i feel that  have done well in successfully making all the ancillary products share the same conventions as well as believing that i have successfully linked them to my film.

Evaluation Q1 - in what way does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

 After we produced our poster, we then researched how to produce a review page for our film that we made. Our poster being on the left of the screen and Sight and Sound (our inspiration) being on the right.


The language and imagery of our review page

From previous research on the real media text, it became apparent that they had a specific format and language that they used to make it an insightful magazine. They would always mention previous films that the producer of the current film had made (if it was successful) and always seem to use an image that most represents the film as a whole.

For our own review, we decided to use an image that represented the protagonists in their character as a whole. We decided to make our antagonist more prominent in the shot whilst our protagonist is further away and almost pushed aside. This was to present our abuser as the dominant character whilst our victim came across as shy and helpless. With the image, the abuser looks at the camera whilst the victim looks down, this is to show who has the power within the shot and therefore the film. By our audience noticing this, they will be able to distinguish two opposing characters and will be able to feel sympathetic towards the protagonist whilst being intimidated by the antagonist as he looks directly into our readers eyes. This feeling of intimidation will immediately allow our audience to feel a connection with the helpless protagonist.

The shading within this shot also allows our audience to draw on first impressions of the characters, as the abuser has both light and dark shades which presents his duel personality, whilst the protagonist is completely covered in a white light, as well as wearing a white costume, whilst the antagonist wears a black costume to connote danger and coldness, inferring a sense of evil.

For our language within the review, we decided to stick to the language that our real media text uses, to maintain a professional look.

Our language   > Their language                                                  

'company that, last year brought to the screen..'          -    ' the second film from  .. the director of..'

'the audience is left with flashbacks without a definite ending' -  'fitful intrusion of CGI'

' Although this footage is obscure, as it places the topic of abuse in an unnatural environment...this is what makes this campaign so beautiful thought provoking' -  'It's a rare moment of genuine anarchy in a film that is too often cosily predictable'


By mentioning these things such as previous films, editing techniques and what is or isn't generic of its genre, it allows our reader to understand the depth of the film as well as familiarising themselves with the directors and their style and how they have progressed throughout their films. It also allows the reader to become more aware of the editing techniques used and why, which also makes the reader appreciate micro-evidence that has been carefully used to construct the film as a whole.

Editing of our film

New film date Monday the 15th april.

Twitter

We have decided that although the footage we have is adequate in what we would like to present, we feel that the ending of our recently edited film needs working on. We are going to shoot new footage for the ending of our film so that it is not as obscure. Even though the film as a whole is complex visually, we do not want to stray away too far from the topic in hand by the overriding images, and after much discussion and consideration, have decided to opt for a more definite ending.

changes to final poster

However, we decided that from the previous poster to change the colour, making it more black and white so that it reflects the colours within our film, we also decided to take the staring off, because although it makes it look professional in a 'hollywood' sense, it does not comply to our type of genre and is not used within 'Sight and Sound' magazine.

We have decided to add the distribution company and star rating to make the poster look more professional 

Final Review poster

Changed sizing of poster image so that it is more prominent in the review

Review- another draft

Review of own film - Tester

You can also view my review if you click on the link below



https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_erPKeqn-E7amtCelY2VGd0RzQ/edit?usp=sharing




I did a quick draft of my review using Word, and now i am going to refine it using Microsoft Publisher.

Word 

Who is going to distribute our film

We have decided that we are going to have WMM to distribute our film opposed to Disinformation, as although they distribute films that are independent and promote social issues we wanted a distribution company who produces films that affect young women's lives. Although these are both independent, and we would like someone who is independent to distribute it as we decided our product was not going to be commercial, but a public service, we decided to opt for WMM, as they promote social issues that are ignored by the mainstream media.

Target audience for our film

Throughout the progression of our film, we have constantly debated on who our specific audience should be, as domestic abuse can happen to anyone at any age. However, the text shown presents the mater of domestic abuse in a more complex way than others within this category, which is why we had to narrow in on our specific audience so that the concept was not overlooked when viewed.

We used a lot of social networking sites to gain feedback about our music, footage, titles and much more, and the feedback that was given was mainly by students of 18 plus, however, we also opened these questions up to a much older audience to gain a wider understanding of the thoughts that our certain material provoked, and i have noticed that much of the feedback from people 18 and above, centred around the same opinions, which lead me to believe that generally from that age onwards our audience had a more in depth understanding of the concept presented, which is why we have come to a conclusion that our audience should be 18 onwards as we do not want to show this footage to anyone younger incase they get the wrong impression, yet we do not want to limit our audience to a specific age as this is such a widely spread topic that many can associate themselves with.

The footage shown may also be inappropriate for younger viewers as there is repetition of violence. Although according to the British Board Of Film Classification (bbfc) that 15 certificates contain violence, we feel that the complex visuals will be harder to comprehend and have researched this further by asking students of that age to watch our film and tell us their interpretation, our group finding that their analysis was brief and inconsistent in comparison to those 18 and above. Those 18 and above, managed to pick up on the relevance of past and present, and some managed to make contextual links between the white attire and innocence of the characters.

Although this is centred around victims of abuse, we did not just want people who have been abused to watch this, we wanted a wide rage of people from different ages and diverse backgrounds so that we could educate them about this topic, as well as aiming it at the abuser so that they can reflect on what they are doing. By showcasing both the antagonist and protagonists inner emotions within our film, it can enable the abusers who view this, to reflect on the emotions that they feel in the situation and see that what they are doing is not acceptable. By making them look upon this film in third person, it allows the abusers to be more critical on what they are doing and allows them to see the overall picture on how they are affecting those around them.




Ken Loach is a film director who wants to make films that 'resonate with the public', even though our films have a different cinematic style, our group, like Loach have the same ambitions about wanting to make our audience aware of the matters in hand, and we feel that like Loach's films, ours will stay in the minds of its audience. Our film being shown as a public awareness video, that will be shows after the watershed due to its violent scenes. The way it's been filmed in an unnatural environment emphasises the fact that the 'happy family's' show can be exactly that- an act, and that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Feedback on our base piece of music

Feedback from Facebook has told us that the sound quality is not great, however it is fitting to our film that we have produced. From this feedback, we have decided that we are going to re-record this soundtrack so it has a better sound quality, and use this initial piece of music as the base for our film. We are going to further edit this pieced of music so that it is longer for the footage we have, and may also incorporate a layer of sound over the top, however this idea is going to be finalised after the editing of our sound is completed.