Project Evaluation - Jacob Knowles
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our short film does a lot to develop and combine traditional forms and conventions of real media products. We didn't, however, focus on challenging these conventions since we decided that the best way to move forward and create a good film in a short amount of time was to create a bricolage of elements which already exist in other media products. The narrative of our film is organised in a non-linear manner with elements of circular narrative, mostly driven through imagery. An example of where we have used circular narrative is where the antagonist/psychiatrist's face is shown in a distorted manner throughout different points in the sequence. A closeup of this same character's face has been used as the final scene in the sequence.
In our sequence, we have used genre conventions which are typically seen in psychological thrillers and horrors. An example of this is the dark lighting that we used in our sequence; In our research, we noticed that other films in the psychological thriller/horror genre dark lighting and heavy shadows were consistently used. For this reason, we decided to introduce this element into our short film and found it to be effective in creating the atmosphere that we set out to achieve. Another genre convention that we used in order to help create the correct atmosphere for our film is the use of flashbacks, we included three different flashbacks in our film to try and create a better narrative that tells our story more effectively.
9 Frame Analysis:
Each frame above has importance in our film on both an individual level and when looked at as a complete picture.
The first frame is arguably the most important frame in the entire sequence, being the title sequence it introduces the film, and is what gives the audience their immediate impressions. The title that we created has a blood splatter effect cut out of it, we did this in order to give it more texture and depth. There is also the face of the antagonist against the far right 'S'. We kept our title sequence simple, this is because we felt that if we made it too complicated it would consume time that we could use elsewhere, also we felt that a simple title sequence is appropriate for our film and the psychological thriller genre.
The second frame is one of the first scenes in the film; it shows the main character, Alex, as he nervously fidgets spinning the globe placed next to him. In this scene, we used low depth of field and a focus-pull in order to pull the attention of the viewer towards the globe. We chose to use a focus pull in this scene to represent the the nervous fidgeting that 'Alex' is doing, we felt that a fast focus pull represented this well. For Alex's costume, we chose to use smart clothes and a watch to show that these mental illnesses can affect anyone and not just people in poverty or already bad situations. Originally, we planned to use a clock ticking to show Alex's fidgeting, using an audio bridge between Alex tapping his finger and the clock ticking. However, we chose to use a globe instead of a clock due to prop limitations when filming. The room we chose to film this scene in has lots of warm, wooden furniture and leather-bound chairs. We chose this environment to film in because of how many similarities that it bears to an actual psychologist's office. We used genre conventions commonly seen in psychological thrillers such as the low lighting in the mise en scene. I would also consider all of the techniques used above to constitute genre conventions too.
In the third frame, we can see the antagonist for the first time in the film that the viewer is aware of. We are seeing this character from Alex's POV in a medium shot that jump cuts inwards towards him. The Faceless Man's character has an almost silhouetted figure against a harsh backlight and little light from the front. In all scenes up until the final two scenes we blurred the face of this character, this is to create enigma as to why this character's face is blurred and to gatekeep the twist of the film (being that the psychologist is a figment of Alex's imagination). The setting we used in this scene is a small village with thatch houses and dark, cluttered scenery. We chose to use this place to film as we felt that it had the appropriate mise en scene for the psychological thriller genre. In this scene we used a blur around the edges of the shot to create a dreamy effect, this is to show that we are currently looking at a flashback. Blurring the Faceless Man's face was also done in post production.
The fourth frame is part of a very brief shot which shows a distorted image of the antagonist. We wanted to create a similar effect to that which is seen in the film Fight Club, where single frame images are shown of Tyler Durden before his entrance to the film. This is done as a kind of subliminal foreshadowing, revealing elements of the film, without completely unmasking it. When paused on this frame the blurring technique used becomes obvious, but when the film is playing it is indistinguishable and looks good in our opinion. We chose to use the costume of a plain dark hoody and trousers for this character, this is similar to clothes that we imagined stereotypical 'street-thugs' and 'criminals' to wear. We thought that this would be the best way to create fear in the audience of this character despite the time limitations that we were faced with.
In the fifth frame, we can see the protagonist's hand resting on a leather bound chair. We chose to use this leather bound chair as a prop in our film since we thought it fit the theme of the psychiatrist's office. We chose to include this close-up of the protagonist's hand as he drums his finger on the chair to represent Alex's nervous fidgeting once again as it intensifies throughout the sequence. For a background in this scene, we used curtains that supplied us with a high contrast to both the chair and the character's hand so that it could be seen easily. We originally planned to use a focus pull in this shot, however, we decided against it as we had already included one not long before it and we thought the sequence may become over saturated with one filming technique.
In the sixth frame is one of the more important filming techniques that we used in the sequence. We panned the camera from left to right while also tracking the camera's focus on the protagonist, with The Faceless Man being visible on the left of the protagonist. The Faceless Man is then masked by the protagonist and we removed The Faceless Man from the frame, making it look like the character disappeared into the background as is demonstrated in the screenshots below.
We chose to use this technique in our film in order to further show how the antagonist is simply a figure of the protagonist's imagination, and how he disappears as quickly as he appears. We chose to use a dark wooded path for the setting of this flashback because of the fact that it reflects the mise en scene of the genre and scene that we were trying to achieve. We also made use of the bollards in the foreground of the shot, as they strongly show the perspective while the camera pans around the protagonist. We also used radial blur in this scene in order to give it a dream-like quality which represented the fact that it's part of a flashback. We used a different costume in this flashback despite the fact that it was filmed on the same day, with a much more casual and familiar attire to what the target audience is likely to wear.
The seventh frame is very similar to the fourth, in the fact that it uses the same techniques with a different character. It shows a very short shot of the protagonist screaming with his hands pulling at his hair, with a highly distorted image.
In the 8th frame, we can see a tracking shot of the protagonist from behind as he moves towards the window. We used a heavy light in the foreground of this shot to create heavy shadows in front of the character. We used this bedroom as a setting for when the protagonist woke from a nightmare as it was the most appropriate one available to us. We thought that the dark blue colour of this setting would give us the appropriate backdrop for the scene we wanted to set.
The ninth frame represents one of the most important scenes in the whole sequence, the scene that the identity of The Faceless Man is revealed. Here we see an extreme close-up of his face, which follows several zooming jumpcuts similar to those seen in the third frame. Similar to the frame previous to this, we used heavy lighting in the foreground and very little in the background, thus making the character stand out more and become the sole focus of the audience's attention.
Our short film very heavily conforms to already existing media and genre conventions as discussed within this 9 frame analysis of our short film. We did very little to challenge genre/media **conventions, however, we did develop them by using them in a way that's not completely conventional.
The Smiling Man 9 Frame Analysis:
I am also going to do another 9 frame analysis of a short film with a similar genre so that I can evaluate my film against another one. The narrative organisation of this short film is linear, the film's story sticks to a set timeline.
The first frame is taken from the first shot in the sequence, it introduces the main character of the film and shows us a tracking shot as he walks towards the camera. The foreground of the shot has very heavy lighting from one side, with little lighting from the back and other side, leaving heavy shadows on the left-hand side of the shot. The character is wearing casual clothes which would be stereotypical of a suburban male between the ages of 20 and 30. This costume immediately creates a relatable figure that the audience can see, as most will be familiar with someone who fits into this category. The elements that I have discussed in this frame are genre conventions typical of psychological thriller/horror films, which non-coincidentally is also the genre that we tried to achieve in our film.
In the second frame, we are introduced to the antagonist, the smiling man. We see him creepily dancing towards the camera, positioned on the far right side of an extreme longshot as he moves across the pavement towards the main character/antagonist. The lighting in this scene seems to be using nothing but the street lights as a natural source of lighting, as we can see the antagonist dancing in and out of the shadows as he approaches.
The next frame shows the main character/protagonist crossing the street to avoid this figure dancing towards him, expressing obvious distress in the fact that the doesn't want to be on the same path as him. There are very dark colours used in this scene, with little lighting focused on the character but the scene is still visible due to the use of streetlights as a form of ambient lighting.
In the fourth frame, we see the smiling man hunched over on the pavement behind the main character through the use of a focus pull towards him. Still only lit by the streetlights, we can see the man as he rises up on his feet and begins to very quickly dance towards the protagonist without ever looking him in the eyes. The antagonist's costume consists of a beige suit with a white shirt and dark trousers, his formal appearance making him look somehow creepier than I'd expect he'd look in more casual, informal clothes. We took inspiration from this in our own film, dressing our antagonist very formally to try and recreate the same effect.
The fifth frame shows the antagonist using a high depth of field OTS shot after he has suddenly appeared in front of the protagonist. This shot is important in the sequence as it once again shows the paranormal capabilities of this character and thus the potential threat he poses to the protagonist.
The sixth frame shows the main character just a few frames before he realises that the smiling man is standing right in front of him. This extreme close up of the protagonist allows the audience to see and somewhat experience the pain that he is enduring by being stuck in that situation.We tried to use this same technique in our film to emphasised the protagonist's emotional turmoil.
The seventh frame shows a long tracking shot of the protagonist as he runs away from the antagonist in panic. The camera shakes to emphasise the panicked emotion that the protagonist is feeling in this scene, we also incorporated this technique in our short film when viewing the antagonist at the end of the film in the final scene. The lighting here remains consistent with other scenes in this short film, the director has made use of street lights for naturally sourced lighting. This makes the scene seem very real and adds a sense of creepiness to it.
In the 8th frame, we can see where the protagonist thinks he's outrun the smiling man, we can see the relief in his face, which is an emotion that all of the audience can likely relate to. The lighting in this scene is much darker than in many of the other scenes.
The ninth and final frame is another frame of the smiling man when he appears in front of the protagonist in a somewhat paranormal manner. The final shot in this whole sequence is of the antagonist, ending with the scariest part of the film. We decided to incorporate the same technique into our film in order to try and achieve a similar effect.
Film Review:
When I created my film review, I researched a lot of different reviews from the LWL review magazine. As a group we also created a layout that we could paste our review into, easily allowing us to create our review after I had written it. As a group, we did research into the language and mode of address style conventions, the layout of the reviews in the LWL magazine, and also the audience that the LWL film reviews magazine targets. This allowed us to effectively create our own review, using all of this information to our advantage. The audience that I understood the LWL articles to target is both males and females between the ages of 25 and 36, I also recognised that this is the audience that we were originally planning on targeting with our psychological horror short film. The audience that the magazine targets is a culmination of all of the other features of the article and how they work together to target a specific demographic of people.
Film Poster:
For researching our film poster I primarily looked at film posters for other British independent short films, I chose this subsection of short film posters to look at as it is the most relevant one to the sort of poster that I aimed to create.
This is one of the posters that I looked at when doing my research for creating my own short film poster. I chose to look at this poster because of how heavily the context of the short film it looks at, relates to our film and the poster largely reflected what I was looking to create when making my own poster. When looking at a poster I looked at the genre, narrative, media language, audience, and representation. I looked at this combination of elements as they were what I presumed I would need to have studied in order to effectively create my own short film poster.
When creating my own poster for my short film, I aimed to create an effective combination of all of the elements that I studied. I made sure that all imagery and information that I included in my poster was relevant to the project and properly fulfilled all of the goals of the task.
In my poster, I included an effective title, consisting of a simple font. I also included appropriate awards, a billing block, and other elements that made my poster effective for its purpose. I believe that my poster, beyond fulfilling the requirement, would do a good job at advertising and promoting our product if it were to be used in a real world context.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I chose this format to answer this question because I deemed it the most effective way to answer it. I feel that a video format allowed me to show the question in an interesting manner.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
The audience that we decided to target with our film is a demographic between the ages of 18 and 36, we decided on this audience primarily because it's an audience used with other similar films. The main way that I got audience feedback throughout the production of our film is through google forms. I found this an effective way to get audience feedback as it allowed me to sample a large number of people within our target audience at once.One of the first pieces of audience feedback I received during the production of our film was for the storyboard. I asked people within our audience if the story made sense if they'd go to see the film in the cinema, and also what genre they'd assign to the film. In this case, the feedback was entirely verbal as it was just three different individuals, however, the general consensus was that the story made sense, they'd go and see the film the cinema and that they'd consider it to be a psychological thriller.
The next time during the production of our film that we received and utilised audience feedback was once the script for the film was created, we asked the same questions in the form of a survey to make sure that people felt the same way in this next stage as they did in the storyboarding stage. We got 8 responses for this survey overall, this gave us a variety of responses and provided us with important information which we utilised to change the script. The results of this survey can be seen in the screenshots below. The main information that we gained from this survey is that the film that we were about to make was not necessarily the Psychological Horror that we thought it was, and that in reality, we had written the script for a Psychological thriller.
The next survey that we used for audience feedback was mid-way during the editing process, after showing them the script, storyboard, and film so far we gave 8 people within our audience the following questions: "What area of the film so far requires the most work?", "Does the film stay true to both the script and storyboard?". Since we were concerned about the audio levels in our film we also asked the question, "Are the audio levels of both the music and dialogue appropriate in our film?". In review, the first question was not very well phrased, I realised this after some of the results for the question came in. Since we were in the middle of editing, many people said that the editing needed the most work, therefore this question gave us very little information. The second question made us realise that when editing we had not paid enough attention to the storyboard and script and deviated significantly enough for 75% of the people we questioned to notice it. We reworked the whole film after realising how much our product differed from our plan, re-editing it from the ground upwards. This survey also confirmed our concerns about the audio levels in our film, because of this we raised the audio levels in our film, making it an all around better project.
The first question here revealed that the issues with the audio levels that were revealed in the second survey were mostly fixed, however, the people that did perceive issues thought that the dialogue is too quiet/the music is too loud, similarly to before. Though the fact that this result was greatly improved shows that the film had also been improved between these two surveys, this gives us evidence that our changes based on audience feedback have been positive.
We also received feedback from people in our target audience after the film was finished, but we still had time to make changes before the film was due to be submitted. These comments were very helpful and let us make some last minute adjustments on our film before it was finalised.
This comment didn't allow us to change anything, however, it did inform us on things that we could potentially do differently if we were to do the project again. For instance, we would make the title sequence shorter. The comment also mentioned that it doesn't feel like a short film, however, it doesn't elaborate on that so I'm unsure what I could have done to change that.
This comment mentions that the dialogue in the first scene was very unclear, despite the fact that we tried to fix it earlier in the project based on other audience feedback. The fact that it was highlighted even though that the people who made the comment didn't participate in any of the previous audience feedback that we received, makes it obvious that it was still a problem. It also made me realise that the screams that we included in our film were maybe more comedic in certain situations than they were creepy. However, they did say in the comment that they still understood the intended effect/
This comment suggested using a lapel microphone when filming. I agree with the comment that in hindsight this would have made our film better , particularly in the sound department.
This comment though reassuring in the quality of our film did not give us anything that we could change or work with in order to make our film better.
This is all of the audience feedback which we received and acted on throughout the creation of our short film. I personally found the audience feedback we received in the duration of our product to be incredibly useful, it helped us make changes and create a better final product at the end of the project. I think that the audience feedback was an incredibly important part of our project and played a key role in us making a good short film.
4. How Did You Use New Media Technologies in The Construction, Research, Planning, and Evaluation Stages?
For This question, I have presented the answer in the form of a Prezi presentation. I chose to use this format as I deemed it the most logical and practical way that I could present my answer in an organised manner. There is various technology that we as a group utilised in order to create the most effective final product possible.
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