Evaulation

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



2. How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?



3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To get a final better focused opinion on my film I asked some people from my target audience to give their opinion on the film, I focused on teenage girls as they were more prone to romance and open to the homosexual elements of the film and I asked them do it online so that I could get opinions from a range of people on an international level including:
Katy, 15, England
Florencia, 16, Argentina
Jordyn, 17, US
Claudia, 19, Spain
Nicole, 14, US
Frances, 16, US

What are your instant thoughts having watched the film?

The response was pretty much the same here ranging from Katy’s ‘really sweet, cute’ to Florencia’s stronger response ‘love can be possible, no matter if you’re a boy or girl’ I was really flattered she felt she connected so strongly with the issue and that made me feel that alone made me feel I must have done something right. And incredibly Frances said ‘I really really loved the film actually I showed it to some of my friends’

Are you satisfied with the ending?

Again the general response was yes. Jordyn and Nicole both said they saw it coming although they sort of like that, both felt it was ‘heart-warming’. Claudia said she was delighted because ‘to [her] it was unexpected’ although afterwards she felt she should have expected it.

Throughout the production people have said they could see the ending coming, it is one of the films weaknesses as it’s supposed to be a twist really. I think by cutting out the middle scene that helped put a bit more pace in it making it harder to predict but it was never going to be perfect. I also cut off the lenghy slightly anti-climatic scene on the end in which Joe and Michael work out their relationship and almost everyone was happier with this. People liked the idea of them staying together or being able to invent their own version of what happened next. Although Jordan said she would have liked more of a definite conclusion.

What genre would say it fits into?

Everyone instantly responded ‘romance’ whilst two added that it could have also been drama. I was surprised that they were able to be so definite as I’d steered away from any obviousn genre conventions but I was also pleased they saw the film as a love story and a connection between Joe and Michael.

How do you think it could have been improved?

A mixed response here. Katy noticed a couple of shakey camera shots but she said these were barely noticeable, I’m personally happy with the camerawork. Florencia and Nicole said the sound was difficult to understand in places and this has been a worry throughout my production. I’ve responded to past feedback by tweaking the sound levels but the low guitar notes still resonate uncomfortably in places and this seems to be unfixable. If I was doing it again I’d experiment with the distance of the microphone from the guitar.

What are your feelings towards the characters?

The characters for me are the most important part of the film. A couple of people, in particular Jordyn, felt the acting wasn’t up to standard and I was aware of this. Matt and Bobby were both unexpirienced and had to be pushed a lot when filming. Especially since Matt had difficulty learning lines.

Some of the feedback here however was fantastic. I learned that my target audience were mostly introvert and socially awkward and so related very well to Matt. Claudia ‘[felt] sorry for’ Joe and Frances was ‘able to identify with’ the characters ‘right off the bat’. From their apparent response to the ending it seems they grew to care for the charectors which was of course very flattering and I was quite honoured.

Do you feel this poster and film review are in keeping with the spirit of the film?

I initially forgot to link my test audience to the poster and review so many of them did not answer this one, however Nicole, Claudia and Frances all said they felt the poster had a very professional look and reflected the film well. Nicole in particular said she liked the original look of it. Although Frances said if she’d seen it in isolation she would have thought the boys would be fighting over a girl, I didn’t mind this, I preferred that the poster didn’t give everything away but the feel of the film and aroused curiosity.

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

Final Ancillery Tasks

1. A film poster:

2. A review in a magazine:

Analysis of a Film Review Page

For ancillary task 2 I will be putting together a page from a film magazine reviewing my film. After investigating I'm drawn to the double page spreads as they allow for a more interesting layout. Sight&Sound is the film magazine most likely to review a more independant film like mine so I've taken the example of 'Nowhere Boy' which I used as one of the inspirations for my poster in ancillery task one. I like the neat simple layout they've created:

Feedback on 'Final Draft'

The primary feedback I got was:

• The billing block should be at the top or around the edges


• Add a film tagline


• Add reviews from magazines

When the class went on and added their own feedback:

• Told the pictures needed to be of a better quality three times


• And the font of the billing block didn't look quite right

Now it was printed out I could see that the billing block did look wrogn so I will try it around the edges as suggested. I can't picture it working at the top. I will try a tagline although as a rule I think they're tacky but I'm sure I could come up with a couple of naff fish based puns. I may also see about adding bubbles or something to make it more visually interesting. I really don't want to have magazine reviews because they just seem to clutter the poster but again I will experiment.

Final Draft

In the end I've gone with something very like what I started with. Through my experimentation I've managed to address most of the things brought up in my original feedback but I was really happy with Joe and Michael being trapped amonst the black and white figures which were really neither here nor there to them. They were just people they shared absolutely nothing in common with and Michael is the only person who should be of relevance in Joe's life.

Further Experimentation

I wanted to get an idea for how my poster would look in context so one thing I did (partly for my own personal satisfaction) was mock up a DVD case and see how it looked then. From this I decided to take the feedback on the title seriously as I felt it looked a bit simplistic as it was with the dark blue all the way through. It just wasn't strong enough it looked thin and as if I was making do. Also seeing the billing block on the back cover decided for me that I wanted it on the blue background where it would stand out much better.


Next I tried stripping back the poster and getting the main title and so forth up to scratch. I tried a few fonts and ended up sticking with the original but bolder and in white with a navy blue outline. This seems to me a drastic improvment. I also tried putting the billing block (now in dark blue) under the title and felt it fitted in much better there although I had to get rid of the 'a film by Xanthe Z. Young' to keep it looking neat.

I still liked the other charectors in threshhold but I decided to experiment having them around the edge. The 'Eagle Vs. Shark' poster made use of positioning the charectors upsidedown to give the film a more quirky feel so I tried this with some of the charectors here. I think it worked well but I didn't like that Michael was no longer a major part of the poster as the film is really about his relationship with Joe.

Second Draft

Not much has really changed here. I've just made a few adjustments. I've added a billing block but I'm not completely satisfyied with it in that position at all. I may try it around the edge as suggested like on the 'Nowhere Boy' poster.

The other noticable difference is the addition of reviews. In my research I found for films like this is was common to have a couple of star ratings than an actual phrase and I wanted to keep it simple so I ran with that. I felt kind of uncomfortable about rating my own film so instead of using actual newspapers I invented a couple 'The Daily Hypothetical' and 'Invention' which I thought sounded like a trendy magazine.