Analysis of our Feedback Forms

Generally, the feedback for our main task was positive. Here is the analysis of our feedback forms.

We asked 8 people to fill in our feedback forms; 4 male, 3 female, 1 unknown.
Out of the 8 people who filled out our feedback forms, all selected our film to be within the fantasy genre.
Out of the 8 people who filled out our feedback forms, all claimed that we had improved since our preliminary task.
Out of the 8 people who filled out our feedback forms; four said our film is a 12A, three said our film was a 15 and one said our film was an 18.
For our improvements, the most popular thing to improve were the stability and length of our shots. Other improvements were; jump cuts, noise levels, our mise-en-scene in the fantasy world and our choise of location.
Out of the 8 people who filled out our feedback forms, all claimed to have enjoyed our piece.
The most favourite part of our piece was the transition between worlds. Other favourite aspects of our piece were Joanne (Sam) hiding in the wardrobe, the follow shot of Joe (Robin) in the bedroom, the mystery of where the character is and our mise-en-scene.
Finally, out of the 8 people who filled out our feedback forms; 5 said they would want to watch the rest and 3 said they wouldn't want to watch the rest. Two out of the three that said no to watching the rest could be due to the fact that they put our film down as being a 12A and so they are not the target audiecne, therefore not engaging them enough.

Evaluation: Question Seven; Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progress from it to the full product?

During our preliminary task I learnt many new things; for example, the use of certain technologies,the importance of editing, how time consuming producing a film and the importance of organisation during a film. In the preliminary, we used technologies which were new to us, and we also used editing programmes which none of us had ever used or even encountered before. Using these technologies in the preliminary allowed us to practise and better the new skills we had acquired for when we produced our main task.

Our main task has definately improved since our preliminary, in many ways. Our main task was a lot more focused on a storyline and clear on genre as we had to be specific so that our target audience could be reached. Compared to the preliminary, our coursework was a lot easier to edit. When we had to edit the main task, I believe we were a lot more skilled with the editing as we had practised with the preliminary, and so the structure of the piece was clearly and more focussed. The idea for our coursework is a lot more interesting than that of the preliminary which helps to make the main task more of an improvement itself.

Altogether there were some parts of our main task of which could be improved. When planning our group had a certain idea of how everything was going to be, but due to the limited time we had to film (because of unforeseen circumstances beforehand), it did not have much likeness to our initial idea. If we had more time and specific editing programmes then we could have been able to make our setting (the forest) more surreal than it already was (i.e. by changing the colours, disfiguring the shape of certain aspects). Mainly, I believe we could have improved the stability of our shots by using the tripod. We opted not to use the tripod so we had more free movement with the camera, unfortunately this came back on us with unsteady shots which made our film look a little shakey. If we could redo the shakey shots, then obviously we would so long as we could have the same free movement as we intended.

Evaluation: Question Six; What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the process of developing our media product we used many new technologies. Before my preliminary I had never used a Apple Mac and that enabled me to practise with it so when it came to my main task, I had a better understanding of the product. The editing programme's available on the mac's were also a new technology of which I, therefor our preliminary allowed me to practise for our main task.
Alhough I have used a camera before, it was a lot easier to film when using the tripod as the shots were steadier. Also, the benefits of the camera was the easy mobility: they were easier to travel with (when filming in other locations). The Apple Macs were useful because they have their own video editing programme. The programme enabled us to organise the clips and made chronological editing a lot easier; the editing facilities within this programme enabled us to edit better than we would have earlier: the transitions used for editing helped us to integrate our music into our film smoothly. The use of black outs on the programme emphasised the transition from one world (Reality) into another (Fantasy). Whilst these technologies had benefits, they also had limitations. The camera's made filming outside difficult as the microphones were small and unable to capture sound properly, if it was a windy day then the camera would catch the sound of the wind and make dialogue a lot harder to hear. When using a tripod there are limitations in mobility as we could not perform dolly shots. Limitations of the Apple Macs were that there was only one programme to use and this programme only offered specific editing processes. Since our film was a fantasy genre it required alot of editing, mainly special effects, transitions and CGI (however CGI and SFX are very costly).

Evaluation: Question Five; How did you attract/address your audience?

When trying to attract an audience it is always best to choose a suitable option of advertising your product. For example, if advertising the next Harry Potter film it would be best to advertise it where people mainly pay attention, like on billboards, TV spots, cinema trailers, TV trailers. Whereas if you were advertising an animated children's film, the best spots for advertisement would be during children's TV programmes, on cereal boxes or doing a promontional advert with a fast food compmahy (i.e. McDonalds). Since our media product is rated as a 15 certificate, I believe the best ways to reach the audience would be television and cinema.This is because we are more likely to pay attention to adverts at the cinema, and a typical teenager (when getting in from college/school) turns on the TV. Also families often watch television during dinner, and it's often on for the most of the evening. Furthemore if the advert is not seen by the target audience, it is likely that a friend or family member would either mention it or offer to take them to see it. Cinema is the perfect place to advertise new films. The atmosphere of the cinema makes a trailer more effective, as the viewer is already in the mood to watch their film. The dark surroundings, the big screen, the loud surround sound makes more of an impact on the viewer.

We decided to hold a screening for our target audience where we gave out questionnaires. The feedback from the questionnaires and later comments were mainly positive. Many commented on the narrative, claiming it was unique and also how easy it was to recognise the genre through the change of worlds. Also people mentionaed how our piece was bending conventions by being grittier as opposed to glamorous, like with other fantasy films. Since our feedback was mostly positive I believe we achieved in attracting our audience with moderate success.

Evaluation: Question Four; Who would be the audience for your product?

When planning our product, we were very uncertain about what sort of audience our piece would target or attract. However, during the production of our product and after it was completed, our group decided that our media product would have a target audience of people aged 15 and above. According to the BBFC, for a film to be within the boundaries of a fifteen certificate, it can have drug taking, horror, imitable behaviour, strong language, nudity, sex and violence. Our media product stays within the guidelines of a fifteen certificated film (using the BBFC's guidelines) as it only uses strong language mildly, there is no use of drugs, nudity or sexual references or imitable behaviour. The violence in the extract is quite strong and make up is used to represent bruises but it is not a major part throughout our film.
When researching the films within our genre, we found that we would use certain aspects of these films to enhance our own piece and most fantasy films are rated PG.However, Pans Labyrinth (which our film has relative likeness to) was certificated 15 for strong language and violence. We researched into our genre and found that the fan base for fantasy films was quite large; the need for escapism being the root of that.

Evaluation: Question Three; What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The distributor is the link between the production of the film and the exhibition and marketing of the product. This is vital, as the distributor could make or break a film.
The best distributors for our film would be Paramount Pictures, or Icon Productions. This is due to the fact that they are known to have made a lot of fantasy films. Icon distributed Bridge to Terabithia(2007) in the UK. Paramount films include The Wizard of Oz (1982), Charlotte's Web (1973 & 2006), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). These are all very successful fantasy films, some of which we even drew elements for our film from (for example, the alternate worlds in Wizard of Oz). These distributors may want to support our film due to it being a fantasy with a good narrative, which is also quite dark and twisting of conventions for the genre. Due to this I think it would most likely be distributed by Paramount Pictures due to their history of having alternate world fantasy films, however they may be put off by the dark side to the story. This is a risk which may be worth taking as the film could have the potential to be very popular.

Evaluation: Question Two; How does your media product reoresent particular social groups?

Our media product highlights particularly sensitive situations within the household (.e.g. domestic abuse) and although these are shown, there are representations of social groups also. The first representation of a specific social group is the representation of stepfathers; usually within films the evil character tends to be an evil step-mother, rather than father. Our media product does not show step-fathers in a very friendly light, the step father (Robin) is an abusive drunk. This representation of step fathers is not pleasant and immediately sets the audience up to dislike Robin and favour the main character (Sam). The fact that Robin is extremely insensitive and lacks morals make him the type of villain that is typical for any sort of dark film and also relevent to Propp's archetypes. It was important to keep a dislike towards Robin through out the main task because without it, the relationship between Robin and Sam would have faltered and the sympathy would not entirely belong to Sam, which would then have ruined the whole point of the product.

Representations of teenagers are portrayled differently to how the media (i.e newspaper, magazines, etc.) show them. Female teenager's are shown to be curious, vulnerable victims but there are some things that parallel with the mainstream representations, Sam – like any adolescent – can be quite rude and have many mood swings (as shown in her conversation with the 'Hung – Helper' ). Sam's character in the sense of Propp's archetypes is typical for the princess but certain characteristics make Sam a lot more developed and realistic. Teenagers can relate to the way Sam acts in the situations she is put in which makes her easier to sympathise with when being bullied by her step-father and bothered by the hung-helper. These realistic traits of character are the sort of things that attract human attention and make Sam the sort of character the viewer is able to connect with emotionally.

Media Evaluation: Question one; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For our main task we chose to do a film within the fantasy genre. We thought about the conventions of this and how well we could stick to it. Fantasy often includes mythical or medieval looking scenery, such as forests or castles, and has narratives and characters, who are always on some kind of quest our journey for a main reason, or each character for their own reason. Propp’s archetypes help to describe which characters are often included in fantasy films, for example; hero, villain, helper/donor/ princess. We watched several fantasy film openings just to get a rough idea what they include. This included Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Labyrinth. Each had good use of mise-en-scene (mountainous areas, mystical trees) and the characters were often well spoken. We did notice however that in most fantasy films the setting is very bright, and we wanted to show a darker side to fantasy. In our main task we were influenced by other films, i.e. Narnia, as our main character fell asleep in a wardrobe to wake up in a fantasy world. In our main task we used similar language to what is used in fantasy films, and tried to recreate the scenery - we made our own forest, which took a lot of time, due to the cameras microphones not being suitable for a real forest. We thought this helped us get the grittier fantasy feel, like with Pan's Labyrinth and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. We followed Propp's archetypes during the two minutes of our piece. We had the hero mixed with a princess as our main character and our helper was the ‘Hung-helper’. We stuck to the conventions of most fantasy films, with our speech, character archetypes, setting, and narrative. However we did break some conventions in a few ways. The main character is often male, whereas with ours it was a female. We also had a slightly darker full story. This isn’t uncommon in fantasy, but not exactly seen often. We did this by including darker things, such as abusive parents and death (the death would have been included in the whole film, had it been made). Also Propp's archetype wouldn't normally see a princess mixed with the hero, as it is usually the hero’s job to save the ‘damsel in distress’ which is often the princess. In our piece the hero has to save herself in order to escape. This is conflicting not only Propp's archetypes but also fantasy conventions.

Editing

Our group finished editing in time with the deadline and there was alot more work to be done within the time limit than we had previously thought.. We finished most of the editing but we were still over two minutes. By recognising that we had too much footage to put in such a small amount of time we went back to our original plans and cut out some of the unnecessary clips (Flash backs into reality and flash forwards to show Sam's death). This did narrow it down just enough, and it still looked good. Better than we ever thought it would. I fashioned a feedback form and during a screening during one lesson some class members filled them out. The data for this will be posted soon.

Feedback form

Here is a copy of the feedback form used in the screening of our piece:

1) Please select your gender: Male Female

2) Which genre do you think our piece is?

Romantic Comedy o

Fantasy o

Action o

Comedy o

Other (please specify) _____________________

3) Have we improved since our prelim?

4) What certificate would you rate this piece? (please circle)

U 12A 15 18

5) What would you improve in our piece?

6) Did you enjoy our piece?

7) If you answered yes to question 6, what was your favourite part?

8) Would you want to watch the rest of the film?