1. A2 Media Evaluation
Giggs Lee

2. The brief
The brief of this unit is to create a short film of our choice, the short film could be live action or animated or a combination of both. With the film, we had to create ancillaries too.

3. Main film

4. Ancillaries
Poster
Magazine
For the ancillaries, we had to create a poster for the film, a radio trailer for the film or a film magazine review page featuring the film. I’ve decided to create a poster and a film magazine review page because I feel the poster and film magazine review page is more updated as you don’t hear radio trailers that often anymore.

5. 1)In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Use I used the short film convention of keeping the duration of the film under 40 minutes. I kept the budget of the film very low, so the only money available was to buy the bottle of alcohol as prop. I also used a common convention in drama films, which is the conflict during the middle of the film, this is important as it progresses the story in an interesting fashion.
Develop
Usually, short films have a meaningful message behind the story, but I took this convention a step further. Lost Boy is primarily originated from the raising awareness for the LGBT community. A common drama film convention is to have a conflict in the film however, I developed this convention, conflict is throughout the film because it is the main character seeking help because of the past event.
Challenge
My short film challenges the convention of using a small amount of characters, my short film includes 7 characters, but I felt that it was necessary to include those characters in order to make the short film relatable to the audience.
My short film challenges the Todorov’s Narrative theory, although all the stages of the theory is present, I changed the order of the stages and it develops a

6.   2)HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?
The short film and the two ancillary tasks were very effective in promoting and creating an identity for the short film.
Shows head shot of main character, hints to audience about characters, engaging the audience. Tone is overall very dark, tells the audience a little more about the plot .
Award wreaths and a bar at the bottom of the poster to list some of the actors from the film to make the poster appear more professional. This is also something I tried to accomplish throughout the film and the project.
Texts are very important, title is “Lost Boy” and it is in big capital, sends a clear message regarding the title of the film.
White coloured text which stands out from the dark tone.
YouTube logo and instruction to find the short film

7.   2)HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?
The magazine layout was inspired by a real media text, “FilmReviews’s review of Twilight.
I used the same photo as the poster, to make a clear link from magazine to poster.
I kept the colour scheme simple, black and white, similar to the poster’s colour scheme, it makes the text clear and easy to read as well as linking the poster and magazine together
Within the writing, I made sure to promote the film, including the actors, director and the creator of the short film as well as criticizing the film to balance out the review just like a real media text magazine.

8. 3)What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After uploading the first draft of Lost Boy on YouTube, I formative feedback from my teacher and peers, and the main 2 points of improvement was better sound quality of interview scene and a slight choppy editing at one part. During the interview scene, you could hear the background noise of outside and classroom, although some may argue that it creates an atmospheric feel to a college however, this makes the volume of the conversation seem lowered and wasn’t as clear as it could have been. I could have bought an external microphone so it would pick up the sound better than it was, but the budget was limited so I couldn’t buy the microphone and create a better sound quality. Second point of improvement was editing, at one part of the short film, it didn’t flow, the editing was very choppy and that specific part just didn’t flow. I realised the mistake after the formative feedback from my teacher, I have learnt to check the full product before publishing it and this was the mistake made. In addition, I received some positive feedback as well, although the reorganizing Todorov’s theory was a risk because it may cause confusion to the audience however, I received positive feedback on that decision, it made the film more interesting and it didn’t cause any confusion, it had a clear storyline. I learnt that taking risk always good, especially when developing from conventions or challenging conventions. Another positive feedback was the use of echo sound effect during the scenes where people were disagreeing with his sexuality. The feedback was that the echo sound effect was new, and my teacher hasn’t seen that before, it was just a new creative element. I have learnt to take creative approach the editing, to always try new techniques and effects.

9. 4)How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
To document the whole process of creating the short film, I used Wordpress to do so, Wordpress allows me to post the main product, ancillaries, and every research document – allowing me to show my progress. Media technologies played a huge part in each stage of development, from research to evaluation.
During the construction of the main product, I used a DSLR camera (Nikon D3300) to film the whole film. I used a DSLR because after studying photography and media last year, I have gotten used to configuring settings on the camera and knowing how the camera works. Filming in DSLR, creating digital files would be much easier than filming with actual film because of the proliferation of media technology, it would be much easier to cut and edit digitally.
For editing , I used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the majority of the film, however, I also experimented with Adobe After Effects. I used Premiere Pro to do most of the cutting and transitioning and I also used Adobe Premiere Pro to create the echo sound effect. I used Premiere Pro because the application is an industry standard as most media practitioners use the Adobe Creative Cloud to edit and create media products.
For the ancillaries, I used Photoshop to create the poster, changing levels, cropping it to a standard A4 poster size, layering text, colour, image etc. And I used Adobe InDesign to create the magazine, mainly because this is also what the industry uses to create magazines.

10. 4)How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
Reseach
For research, I used YouTube to look at past real media texts because YouTube is a media platform in which I would like to publish my short film on. After looking at the videos, I would use Microsoft Word to create drafts of research to post on Wordpress to show my progress. In addition, I also used other media blogs and past informational resources to research areas of history of short films and institutions which release short films such as WARP films.
Furthermore, for primary research, I used Google Forms to create surveys online, I used Google Forms because the application was very easy to use. I used media technology to gather primary research instead of using questionnaires on paper because digital data could be saved and backed up on devices and apps such as Google Drive, Dropbox etc. Whereas paper versions of questionnaire could always be lost.

11. 4)How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
For planning, there wasn’t much technology, the main technologies would be a desktop, and the WordPress application. I used desktops to access Wordpress, which was available in home or at school. In addition, WordPress, was used again to upload progress and keep track of my coursework and WordPress was allows me to change any of the documents and plans.

12. 4)How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
For Evaluation, I’m using PowerPoint to present the evaluation which is what this presentation is presented by. I used PowerPoint because I prefer to type the evaluation rather than using a voice recording application to record voice over and present the evaluation that way. I also used PowerPoint instead of a voiceover because of the difficulty with my computer’s RAM, I cannot layer multiple tracks on Adobe Premiere Pro without it crashing.
In addition, using PowerPoint allows me to use images and clear arrows to label the images of ancillaries.